Fired St. Aug’s president claims hostile environment for Black women in complaint
The recently fired president of St. Augustine’s University has filed a discrimination complaint against the historically Black school and its board of trustees, claiming she and other Black female leaders faced a hostile work environment there, and that she was terminated for raising it as an issue.
Christine McPhail said in the complaint filed Tuesday to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that the board fired her on Nov. 13, roughly a month after she made an internal complaint. The board did not let her know she had been terminated until Dec. 3, after she had learned that the university was in danger of losing its accreditation.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, at its annual meeting in early December, voted to remove St. Augustine’s accreditation. The school in east Raleigh, which was chartered in 1867, is appealing the decision.
Trustee Chairman James Perry said he had no comment on McPhail’s EEOC claim.
Claims of disrespect against women
In her complaint, McPhail said male trustees repeatedly treated her and other Black female leaders at the school with belligerence and disrespect. The names of those trustees were redacted in the copy of the complaint that McPhail’s attorney, David Tracey, made public.
McPhail became the university’s 13th president in early 2021, succeeding her husband, Irving Pressley McPhail, who died from COVID a few months into his presidency. Christine McPhail is a former president of Cypress College near Anaheim, California, and had previously worked as a professor of practice at the John E. Roueche Center for Community College Leadership at Kansas State University. She is also the founding professor and director of the Community College Leadership Doctoral Program at Morgan State University in Maryland, according to her bio on St. Augustine’s website.
McPhail said throughout her tenure at St. Augustine’s that board members have “spoken to me in hostile and demeaning tones, and denigrated my work, in a manner the trustees have never directed at male employees.”
“When I challenged such conduct, the male trustees would dismiss my concerns, claiming I needed to be ‘less sensitive,’ and accusing me of going ‘in the gender direction,’” her complaint said.
The trustees particularly berated her and other female employees for discussing financial matters, she said. The university struggled financially long before she took the helm, and a key issue threatening its accreditation is the lack of annual audits for the past two years.
She said the mistreatment “reached a fever pitch” on Oct. 5, when one trustee’s berating of her and a Black female staff member began at a meeting, continued into a recess and then spilled out into a campus hallway. The staff member resigned over the conduct of two of the trustees, the complaint said.
A day later, the complaint said, the board “closed ranks” around the trustee. McPhail said she was told, “You just need to hurry up and get over that. We’ve got business to take care of. You’ve got to separate yourself from that woman stuff.”
‘Cease and desist’ letter
McPhail said she filed her internal complaint on Oct. 9. Instead of an investigation and review, it brought retaliation, she said, with a trustee sending her a “cease and desist” letter. More threats of “adverse action” came, she said, when she told the board she had hired an attorney.
The board’s demographics back her claims, she said. When she was hired, three of the school’s 15 trustees were women. In recent months, two Black female trustees have left the board, leaving only one female trustee who is white.
McPhail, 78, also claimed age discrimination in the complaint.
Last week, the university’s board appointed Marcus H. Burgess as interim president. He was the vice president for institutional advancement at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C., and also held leadership positions at York Technical College in Rock Hill, S.C.; Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, Florida; and Voorhees College in Denmark, S.C.
Tracey, McPhail’s attorney, said the next step is for the EEOC to investigate the complaint and make a determination. If it finds discrimination, the EEOC can file a lawsuit to enforce violations.
