A former administrator is suing the Rockwood School District, saying in the lawsuit that the district did nothing while she and other Black staff members were subjected to racial abuse. The suit alleges that district officials only addressed the issue when white employees were targeted with abuse by the public.
Brittany Hogan, who resigned from Rockwood in April 2021, is seeking damages in excess of the court’s jurisdictional minimum of $25,000. Hogan had worked for the district for eight school years and was Rockwood’s director of educational equity and diversity at the time of her resignation.
Mary LaPak, Rockwood’s chief communication officer, said the district is aware of the lawsuit that was filed in St. Louis County Court on Feb. 23. She also said the district does not comment on pending litigation.
John Waldron of the law firm Khazaeli Wyrsch LLC of St. Louis is listed as Hogan’s attorney. He declined to discuss the lawsuit on Monday, Feb. 27, but provided the petition to the court.
The lawsuit lists a series of incidents throughout the 2020-2021 school year that allegedly illustrate that “when Ms. Hogan complained about the abuse she was suffering, Rockwood officials sidelined her, making it impossible for her to adequately carry out her job. By isolating Ms. Hogan and allowing her to take the brunt of abuse, Rockwood created a hostile work environment that resulted in Ms. Hogan’s constructive discharge.”
Hogan began working at Rockwood in the 2012-2013 school year as an equity facilitator and social worker. She was serving as the district’s coordinator of educational equity and diversity before being promoted to director of educational equity and diversity for the 2020-2021 school year.
She was paid a salary of $107,131 when she resigned, district officials reported.
Reading program a catalyst
According to the lawsuit, Hogan’s relationship with the district began to deteriorate in December 2020, when Rockwood created the One Read program and invited middle school and high school students, as well as adults, to read “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.” The book explores the history of racism in this country and gives readers hope for an antiracist future.
While Hogan did not help select the book, she helped to promote the reading event, the lawsuit said. She promoted the community reading of the book through Rockwood’s diversity Twitter account, @RSD_Diversity, the lawsuit said.
The suit said Hogan began receiving racist messages through the district’s Twitter account with one message saying Hogan and another Black Rockwood official should “work at a different school district where the students were Black.”
In January 2021, Hogan and her secretary began receiving threatening and profane phone calls and email messages, the suit said. One caller demanded Hogan’s secretary to disclose where Hogan was physically located. An email from a parent read, “I hope you sleep well at night …” which the lawsuit claims implied that Hogan might not be safe at night.
The lawsuit said Hogan’s secretary notified administrators about the threatening messages. It also said no action was taken to protect Hogan, who at the time worked at an unsecured building near one of the district’s middle schools that made her vulnerable to possible altercations.
In February, a human resource employee told Hogan in a telephone call that things had become “out of control,” but she did not receive assistance or even a written response, the lawsuit said.
On Feb. 4, 2021, Hogan emailed her supervisors to tell them she would not participate in the scheduled Feb. 10, 2021, reading of “Stamped” on Zoom with the community. In the email, she said she was being “trolled,” or harassed, by white supremacists on the Twitter diversity account, according to the lawsuit.
She also wrote in that email, “As the only Black woman in district leadership, I am concerned and uncomfortable of how quickly I’ve become the scapegoat of white rage,” the lawsuit said.
During a superintendent’s cabinet meeting in the first week of February 2021, copies of the threats Hogan had received on Twitter were given to every cabinet member. The lawsuit said the only action taken was on Feb. 8, 2021, when then-Superintendent Mark Miles told Hogan to block Twitter accounts that were harassing her.
Miles retired following the 2020-2021 school year, citing community pressure that included taunts and threats through email and social media as part of his reason for leaving.
The lawsuit said Hogan was only allowed to block the harassing Twitter accounts for a few days because administrators then ordered her to unblock those accounts, according to the lawsuit.
On March 18, 2021, Hogan was notified about an email sent by a parent, who is white, to her child’s school principal detailing a social media post that mentioned hanging and lynching, using as a reference the tree on the Rockwood logo. The email also said posts on the Rockwood Concerned Parents Facebook page were directing hate speech and negativity at Hogan and the one other high-ranking Black employee, the lawsuit said.
Some staff also hostile
Not all of the lawsuit’s complaints were directed at parents and community members.
The lawsuit said in January 2021, a school librarian refused to promote the “Stamped” community reading event and in May 2021, the same librarian also refused to celebrate Asian History Month. Both times, the lawsuit said, the librarian said she wouldn’t participate in the events because it may impact her husband’s law enforcement career.
Hogan reported the librarian’s actions to the assistant superintendent of learning and support services, but administrators never took steps to direct the librarian to engage in the diversity programs, according to the lawsuit.
After months of Hogan cataloging instances of harassment and threats, she was allowed to work from home, and the district provided her with security for a few days, the lawsuit said.
At the same time, Hogan was asked to “stay away” from Eureka High School, as it was a “particular location of racist invective from parents,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit said this directive severely limited Hogan’s work because Rockwood’s Central Office is in Eureka, and at that time, Board of Education meetings were held in the Rockwood School District Administrative Annex, also in Eureka.
The same week Hogan was told to “stay away” from Eureka High, Hogan reached out to the school’s principal about a new social worker, who would be one of two Black employees at the school, and how to welcome and support the social worker. The lawsuit said Hogan received no response.
The lawsuit said that on April 1, 2021, Hogan wrote Shelley Willott, the assistant superintendent of learning and support services, about an in-person meeting to be held at the Annex and her desire to conduct the meeting by Zoom because of the threats she had received and directive to stay away from Eureka. There was no response to Hogan’s request, and the meeting was held without her, the lawsuit said.
The suit said, “(Hogan) was once again sidelined for having the audacity to protect her own safety.”
In spring 2021, a Eureka High administrator was reported for using a racial slur, and Hogan was excluded from dealing with the fallout from the situation despite such incidents being part of her duties, the lawsuit said.
“Rockwood officials completely excluded Ms. Hogan from this conversation, contributing to the pattern of sidelining her and stripping her of her job responsibilities,” the lawsuit said.
Hogan leaves district
The tipping point for Hogan leaving Rockwood appears to have occurred in April 2021, when a high-ranking Rockwood official allegedly told someone else that if Hogan didn’t want to work at Rockwood, she should quit so the district no longer had to pay her, according to the lawsuit, and that Hogan later learned of that conversation.
Hogan resigned on April 8, 2021.
The lawsuit claims the Board of Education finally provided support for district employees facing abuse on May 18, 2021, by issuing a statement condemning the actions. The suit said this was only done after white parents and employees complained about the situation.
The lawsuit said every Black employee Hogan had supervised has left the district, and while it does not name them, the suit also points out that Aisha Grace, who took over Hogan’s position in July 2021, and Terry Harris, Rockwood’s executive director of student services, also have resigned from the district.
Grace and Harris are both Black.
“There has been a mass exodus of Black employees because of the hostile work environment that Rockwood has fostered and now seems to have adopted,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also said that on Oct. 6, 2022, the Board of Education “completed its capitulation to the racist mob by cutting three previously approved programs that were intended to help Black students at Rockwood who faced discrimination and other social woes.”
The suit said as a direct result of the unlawful conduct of Rockwood, Hogan has suffered “loss of past and future wages and benefits career damage, a diminished career potential, emotional and physical distress and other non-pecuniary losses, all of a continuing and permanent nature. The conduct of the defendant was outrageous and evidenced reckless indifference for the right of Ms. Hogan and the right of others, entitling Ms. Hogan to an award of punitive damages.”
According to Hogan’s LinkedIn profile, she worked as a manager at Delmar DivINe, a nonprofit collaborative space in St. Louis for social service agencies to work together, for more than a year and a half. She became a member of the St. Louis Public Schools Board of Education in August 2022, and in January, she became a self-employed diversity, equity and inclusion consultant.