He may just be the most stubborn man in the city.
An eccentric Brooklyn high-school teacher was so adamant that education officials had no right to make him undergo a psychiatric exam that he fought it for 14 years — all the while forfeiting a paycheck.
Ronald Grassel won reinstatement as a classroom teacher last year after being suspended in 1998.
The war of attrition with the Education Department was sparked by a June 13, 1997, incident in which Grassel marched into his principal’s office at Harry Van Arsdale HS and dumped a heap of crumpled union literature on the conference table. He says it was out of frustration that the school wasn’t taking his complaints seriously that someone had been tearing down his pamphlets.
DOE officials were more concerned with the odd statements he allegedly made after the dramatic paper dumping — “I wish to report a brutal and vicious attack which took place on myself” and, allegedly, “I have injuries from the neck up.”
The 25-year veteran was pulled from the classroom and sent to see a shrink that September. When he repeatedly refused, he was suspended without pay in February 1998.
Over the course of the next 14 years, Grassel filed eight legal actions and faced down four DOE termination hearings — while skipping out on nine mandated medical exams.
He never came close to winning any of his legal arguments fully, including for back pay, but he never lost badly enough to be given the boot.
And depending on who presided over the case, the impression he left swung like a pendulum.
One hearing officer called Grassel “uncooperative, disruptive, cantankerous, confrontational [and] evasive.”
Another found him to be “articulate,” “forceful” and “respectful.”
But ultimately, none of them concluded that he was being a thorn in the DOE’s side just for the hell of it.
“The main reason that this case has lasted this long is [Grassel’s] consistent refusal to submit to an exam,” wrote arbitrator Alan Berg in 2009. “However, it appears to me that [he] has a good-faith belief that the Department’s directives to him were unlawful.”
Friends and neighbors said Grassel never worked elsewhere and just lived on his accumulated savings, in low-rent spaces.
He spent much of his time in libraries or preparing his legal cases against the DOE, and volunteered at polling sites on election days.
“He’s litigious, among other things,” said his decades-old friend from Queens College, Ronnie Wax. “He figured he was wronged and he wanted to right the situation.”
Grassel declined to comment.
After a court gave him one last chance to avoid termination, the steadfast social studies teacher finally reported to a medical exam on Jan. 18, 2011 — and was declared mentally fit.
It should have been the end.
Instead, the DOE needled its nemesis by requiring that he get his eyes examined – he had poor vision – before it would clear him for duty.
Grassel again refused and challenged the order in court, and finally managed to get an independent arbitrator to order the DOE to reinstate him.
He returned to teaching last September at the age of 63, making $100,000 per year, but only as a substitute who travels from school to school.
He has two lawsuits pending against the DOE.