White principal claims she was bullied into resigning after racist ‘slip of the tongue’
The lawsuit alleges that 'anti-racism' training at the school actually discriminated against white people
A former Virginia school administrator is suing the school district after she was “forced out” of her job for using the phrase “colored people” during racial equity training.
As reported by The Daily Beast, Emily Mais, who is white, is a former assistant principal at Agnor-Hurt Elementary School in Charlottesville. She alleges in her complaint that white employees in the Albemarle County Public School system had to participate in mandatory racial equity training.
Mais claims in the lawsuit that “instead of training faculty members to embrace students of all races, [the Albemarle County School Board] uses a teacher-training curriculum that promotes racial division and encourages racial harassment.”
Mais said the ‘anti-racism’ training actually discriminated against white people.
The training “assigned negative or positive characteristics to each person based solely on skin color,” said Kate Anderson, senior counsel and Director of the Center for Parental Rights at Alliance Defending Freedom. The conservative Christian legal advocacy group is working with Mais on the case.
“Emily expressed concerns that the training was creating an environment that was bad for everyone, and in which some were constantly villainized and others were disempowered and portrayed as perpetual victims because of their race. She was ignored,” Anderson told The Daily Beast.
During the training, which was based on Glenn Singleton’s handbook Courageous Conversations about Race, Mais says she accidentally used the term “colored people” instead of “people of color” while commenting during the presentation.
According to her lawsuit, Mais immediately apologized for the “slip of the tongue” but a teaching aide chastised her. She also alleges that she was repeatedly bullied by her colleagues who said she needed more sensitivity training. The constant harassment she endured from her peers was allegedly ignored by administrators.
In September, Mais said she was forced to resign “from a job that she loved to preserve her mental health” because of the hostile work environment created by her former colleagues, according to the lawsuit. Mais is now taking legal action, seeking back pay and unspecified damages for her “pain and suffering.”
The school district adopted its anti-racism policy in 2019, which states the Albemarle County Public Schools is “committed to establishing and sustaining an equitable community…to end the predictive value of race and ensure each individual student’s and staff’s success,” per the district website.
“We have a strategic plan that talks about values. …Equity has been an important one,” district spokesperson Phil Giaramita told The Daily Beast. “Our racism policy is very consistent in what we say our principles and values are as a school division…We’re talking about equity of opportunity. Every student should have the same opportunity, an equal opportunity to achieve their highest level. That’s really what the policy is designed to ensure.”
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