Four Teachers Say They Were Fired from Private School for Calling out Racism

Four former teachers at Sewickley Academic are suing the school for firing them out of retaliation for acknowledging their racial discrimination, reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. They said the school’s termination of Black administrators last summer was racially motivated.

Michael-Ann Cerniglia, D. Barret Gough, Jill Korber Small and Gail Wolfe filed their suit Tuesday against Sewickley alleging the school fired them because they opposed the way they replaced Black administrators with white ones. Per the suit, the school wanted to “restore the academy to what it used to be.”

The termination of former head of admissions Douglas Leek catalyzed their opposition. Leek filed his own suit and his position was filled by a white woman.

More on the case from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The purge of Black administrators happened after a group of parents sent a letter to the community criticizing what they consider political and ideological persuasion in the curriculum after the replacement of the longtime head of the school. The parents said the diversity program amounts to “critical race theory dressed in sheep’s clothing.”

Mr. Leek said he was fired as part of a pattern of discrimination against Blacks, but the academy said he was terminated for performance and dropping enrollment.

The academy viewed all four teachers as ring leaders in the opposition, according to the complaint, and told them on several occasions to forget “the past.”

The four teachers claim they were targeted for supporting Mr. Leek as well as other administrators they believed were terminated out of racial motives.

In addition to being told to “forget the past,” they also said they were told to stop talking about racial issues in African American history classes (as if that’s honestly possible) and to teach “both sides” of slavery. Of course, because what about the plantation owners? What about their feelings?

Anyways, the suit demands the school to reinstate the teachers and also compensate them for the money and opportunities they lost.