Teacher sues Columbus area school board, principal & coach for alleged discrimination
A former Russell County School District teacher has sued the RCSD board, a principal and a coach for alleged violations of her civil rights.
Chantell Roberts, a Black woman, filed her charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 2022. One year later, the EEOC granted her permission to sue. She is suing for lost wages and other compensation.
Patricia Gill, an attorney from Birmingham, Alabama, filed the lawsuit on Roberts’ behalf Nov. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Eastern Division.
Russell County High School principal Tonya Keene, a white woman, and RCHS head football coach Dillon Griggs, a white man, are also defendants in the lawsuit.
The Ledger-Enquirer didn’t reach Keene, Griggs and RCSD attorney Dana Hill before publication.
Job assignment, training and rat issues
Roberts was hired to teach family consumer science at RCHS, but she was assigned to teach only culinary arts, despite having no training in that subject, when she started working there in August 2021, the lawsuit says.
The white male mentor who was supposed to show Roberts how to log into the RCHS computer system and clock in and out was sick and didn’t attend the training, the lawsuit says.
When the mentor returned, he told her to sign the mentor log so “they would not get into trouble.” She signed the document under duress, and he was paid for mentoring he didn’t perform, the lawsuit says.
“From the very beginning,” the lawsuit says, “Roberts never received training or the tools to succeed while White employees did receive the appropriate training and tools to succeed.”
On or about Aug. 30, 2021, Roberts notified Keene that she wasn’t receiving school emails, the lawsuit says.
On or about Sept. 24, 2021, Roberts injured herself at RCHS when a rat “jumped out at her,” and she fell while jumping back in fright, the lawsuit says.
Restroom issue
The restroom adjacent to her classroom was for one person at a time, but she had 22 students, and the female students didn’t want to use the same restroom as the boys while other classes didn’t require girls and boys to share a restroom, the lawsuit says.
Roberts helped the female students write a petition, which she signed, and presented to the administration, the lawsuit says.
“A few minutes later,” Keene and another woman “stormed into Roberts’ classroom yelling at Roberts about following the rules to prevent the ‘devious lick challenge,’” the lawsuit says.
The challenge was a trend on social media where students posted videos of themselves vandalizing school property, most commonly restrooms.
A student asked Keene for permission to use a larger restroom for privacy reasons, but Keene denied the request, according to the lawsuit. Then a parent complained to Roberts, who “was treated as though this was her decision,” the lawsuit says.
Technology issues
On or about Oct. 5, 2021, Keene told Roberts she needed to clock in. Roberts told her she didn’t have an ID badge and hadn’t been trained how to clock in, the lawsuit says.
On or about Oct. 6, 2021, Keene asked Roberts to meet. Roberts requested the next day to have a witness at the meeting, but Keene denied the request and rescheduled the meeting, the lawsuit says.
On or about Oct. 12, 2021, Roberts expressed to Keene concerns about her mentor. Roberts told Keen she hadn’t been provided a school email address, an ID badge, a key, no door code until recently, no lesson plans and couldn’t log into the school’s computer system to perform her work, the lawsuit says.
Keene told Roberts she couldn’t leave her classroom unless the children were supervised. But white teachers “were constantly late or not in class,” so Roberts reported the disparity to the superintendent, the lawsuit says.
Also on or about Oct. 12, 2021, Roberts requested to have another mentor because “there were factual inconsistencies on the mentor sheet as it stated she had met with (the mentor) on dates she wasn’t even employed,” the lawsuit says.
On or about Oct. 25, 2021, Roberts was provided a badge to clock in and out, as well as a ticket to get a school email address, the lawsuit says.
On or about Oct. 27, 2021, after Roberts had complained about not receiving a Chromebook to do her schoolwork, Keene told Roberts that she had a Chromebook for her, the lawsuit says.
Racial slur
Also on or about Oct. 27, 2021, a coach requested trash bags from Roberts’ classroom. Five or 10 minutes later, the lawsuit says, Griggs, whom she hadn’t met, came into her classroom and yelled, “Where are the trash bags?”
Griggs also told her to not “call me rude in front of the f---ing kids,” the lawsuit says.
“As Coach Griggs yelled at Roberts,” the lawsuit says, “he got louder and louder and in-her-face dripping spit on her face as she slumped lower in her seat.”
Roberts told Griggs that she didn’t mean to offend him and that he should leave the classroom because he was scaring her and her students, the lawsuit says.
Griggs told Roberts, the lawsuit says, “Don’t talk to me,” “Who do you think you are?”, “You don’t ask me who I am,” “Who raised you?” and “Go back to where you came from.”
Roberts considered the “Go back to where you came from” comment a racial slur and reported it that day to an assistant principal, the lawsuit says.
A school counselor accused Roberts of “having a moment,” which is consistent with the stereotype of Black women being angry, and the counselor told Roberts the incident was her fault, the lawsuit says.
On or about Nov. 4, 2021, Keene disciplined Roberts with a verbal warning for saying Griggs was rude, Roberts said.
From Nov. 12-15, 2021, Keene and an assistant principal interviewed two of Roberts’ 22 students as part of their investigation of the incident, and one of those students confirmed the racial slur, but Griggs received “only” a verbal warning, the lawsuit says.
Racial images
On or about Dec. 7, 2021, Roberts notified an assistant principal that two of the ceiling tiles in her classroom had offensive images and words on them. One tile contained images of the Confederate flag with the words, “It’s not a redneck thing, it’s a right thing.” The other tile had the words “Dixie Girl” written on it, the lawsuit says.
On or about Jan. 11, 2022, Keene accused Roberts of propping open a school door overnight, but she didn’t have a key to open the door, the lawsuit says.
Due to her on-the-job injury related to seeing a rat at school, Roberts parked her car close to a school door. On or about Jan. 12, 2022, Keene told Roberts she couldn’t park there because those spots were for administrators, although no signs stated they were reserved, the lawsuit says.
Keene gave Roberts permission to temporarily park her car near a school door to unload groceries for her culinary arts class, but Keene would announce over the intercom that “whoever is driving the silver vehicle (Roberts’ vehicle) needs to move their car or it be towed,” the lawsuit says.
Keene’s brother and other white employees who weren’t administrators repeatedly were allowed to park there. without threats over the intercom, the lawsuit says.
Alleged retaliation
On March 2, 2022, Keene wrote Roberts a letter outlining alleged infractions, which started the day after her complaint about Griggs, the lawsuit says.
After that complaint, a teacher told Keene that Roberts had a “mental breakdown” in the classroom and was worried about the safety of the students. That assertion not only is false but couldn’t have happened on the day of the accusation because Roberts wasn’t at school then, the lawsuit says.
Also after that complaint, “it was alleged a child made a statement that Roberts put her hands on them,” the lawsuit says. But she taught at the school for four days “without issue after this alleged complaint, establishing that it was false and there was never concern,” the lawsuit says.
Keene called to her office students who didn’t like Roberts to make statements against her and get her fired, the lawsuit says.
Termination
On or about March 29, 2022, Keene recommended to the RCSD board to not renew Roberts’ contract. The board accepted the recommendation on or about May 9, 2022. She was terminated, effective May 26, 2022, the lawsuit says.
On or about May 11, 2022, the same two students who accused Roberts of putting her hands on a student also accused her of having a meltdown and allegedly throwing things, which was false, Roberts said. What actually happened, according to the lawsuit, was that Roberts “accidentally knocked over a stacked tray of papers and they fell on the floor.”
On or about May 16, 2022, Roberts notified Keene that she would be out of school to seek medical treatment for the injuries she sustained at school during the September 2021 rat incident. Keene claimed she was unaware the injuries “were ongoing,” the lawsuit says, but Roberts had been providing doctor notes “the entire time.”
On or about May 17, 2022, Roberts presented a letter from a doctor stating that her orthopedic condition stemming from the rat incident required surgery, but she was placed on administrative leave instead of medical leave, according to the lawsuit.
On or about June 6, 2022, Roberts was notified by letter that she was “banned” from RCHS property and allegedly made “inappropriate comments and accusations towards employees at Senior Night, which was false,” the lawsuit says.
