The young California woman, a Hispanic immigrant who The Daily Wire is referring to only as Maria, says she was abandoned by ideologues who often talk about victimhood and female rights after she was abused at the hands of a black teacher with deep ties to the activist left. Matef Harmachis, a socialist and black nationalist, was repeatedly put on leave by the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) in California for misconduct.
The final straw was on May 4, 2017, when Harmachis came behind Maria during study hall and “growled in [the student’s] ear like an animal and then bit or nibbled her ear” for 10 seconds, according to California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Police said Harmachis admitted to “kissing [Maria] on the left ear fairly early on in the interview” and said, “kiss, bite, whatever.”
Three months later, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of battery in exchange for a sentence of one day in jail plus probation. In February 2020, the commission stripped him of his teacher license for “conduct contrary to modesty and good morals,” stating that “parents do not send their children to school to be preyed on, battered, or touched by their teachers.” Maria sued Harmachis, as well as the district for keeping him in the classroom, and
won a nearly $1 million settlement, The Daily Wire reported in May.
Maria thought that would be the end of her ordeal. But even after Harmachis was convicted, fired, and settled in court, politically-aligned activists and educators are using leftist politics to erase his victim and excuse his behavior.