An Idaho high school teacher who’s also reportedly an outspoken LGBT activist was arrested Monday for allegedly raping a student he’d once taught.
“Eric McDermott, 59, of Meridian, faces charges of rape and sexual battery committed by lewd or lascivious acts on a minor 16 to 17 years of age,” the Idaho Statesman reported Tuesday.
According to the prosecution, McDermott, a geography teacher and boys’ basketball coach at Fairmont Junior High taught the student when he was 15.
A year later in 2020, McDermott allegedly contacted the student on a “dating hookup site,” where he proceeded to speak to the boy for a few days and allegedly send him nude photos.
Eventually, the Fairmont Junior High teacher picked the boy up, drove him to his home, and then allegedly sexually assaulted him.
In a letter to parents and Fairmont Junior High staff, Boise School District spokesman Dan Hollar said that McDermott was placed on leave “immediately after being notified” by the Boise Police Department about McDermott’s arrest.
“We understand that this news will raise concerns about student safety and we want to assure our families that the District is fully cooperating with law enforcement and prosecutors as they investigate this matter,” he reportedly wrote.
He added that because this is a “personnel and legal matter,” there’s not much else he can divulge about this situation at the moment.
Following McDermott’s arrest, the Idaho Tribune published an exclusive report revealing that he’d been a “prominent volunteer with the Pride Foundation’s Idaho Leadership Action Team.”
Case in point:
Many thanks to fabulous Pride Foundation Idaho volunteers Eric McDermott of Boise and Jim Huggins of Moscow for tabling…
Posted by Pride Foundation on Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Another example:
Pride Foundation 2019 Idaho Scholar Maxwell Blue with Pride Foundation’s Idaho Regional Officer Steve Martin, board…
Posted by Pride Foundation on Friday, July 5, 2019
In fact, his LGBT activism is very apparent just by looking at his own Facebook page.
For example, on May 23rd of 2021, he created a birthday fundraiser for the Pride Foundation.
Look:
“McDermott would travel all around Idaho, attending drag shows and pride events, seeking ‘volunteers’ ages 16 and up – the same age as his alleged victim,” the Idaho Tribune further notes.
In 2018, for example, he attended the Palouse Pride Festival in Moscow, Idaho, as reported at the time by Washington State University’s The Daily Evergreen newspaper.
“Many booths populated the festival, one of them from the Pride Foundation. One of the volunteers with the foundation, Eric McDermott, is a ninth grade U.S. history teacher,” the paper reported at the time.
“He has been volunteering at the Pride Foundation for at least five years. The organization gives LGBTQ students the opportunity to receive college scholarships. Last year it gave away $505,000 worth of scholarships to 37 students,” the paper added.
“It’s a way for our community to come together,” McDermott told the paper, adding that he greatly enjoys volunteering with the Pride Foundation.
According to the Idaho Tribune, McDermott was also “extremely involved in reading, promoting, and giving minors sexually explicit LGBT Books, as evidenced by his posts on an internet book forum called Good Reads.”
In the post below, for instance, he responds to a post about how some Young Adult (YA) books have “too much sex for being called under-18 reading”:
In a 2016 Goodreads forum post, McDermott reportedly revealed that he has junior high students to whom he sometimes lends out copies of LGBT author Jay Bell’s “Something Like …” series.
This is problematic because “Bells books go into explicit detail about sexual acts, sexting, chatrooms, stealing pornography, and on and on and on,” according to the Idaho Tribune.
Note that none of these extra details have been reported by the establishment media. The Idaho Tribune would like to know why.
“Why has all of the coverage from KTVB, the Idaho Statesman and other establishment media outlets deliberately ignored the fact that McDermott was an LGBT Youth Outreach activist, and giving pornographic books to freshmen in his class?” the paper asks before answering its own question.
“The answer is simple. And it’s the same reason why the Idaho Establishment Press outlets have not followed up Dustin Kisner, a former teacher at Black Canyon Alternative High School who pled guilty to engaging in lewd conduct with a child under the age of 16 and one charge of enticing a child through the internet.”
This is not the only scandal to hit Fairmont Junior High.
“Fairmont social worker Scott Crandell died by suicide in December after police began investigating allegations that Crandell was victimizing a student in their early teens. In January, city prosecutors charged Fairmont’s former principal, Christopher Ryan, with failing to report an allegation of child abuse for months,” according to The Idaho Statesman.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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