A Black woman is taking legal action against a school district in northern Utah that hired her to investigate racial harassment at their schools, which district officials made impossible after they began discriminating against her, according to a fresh lawsuit.
Joscelin Thomas once served as a coordinator for the Davis School District. Her position was created in 2022 as part of a settlement agreement between the district and the Justice Department that mandated the district adopt a means to address racial harassment in their schools.
So, in the district’s newly-created Office of Equal Opportunity, Thomas was hired as a district coordinator to investigate and respond to complaints of racial harassment.
This followed a full probe in 2021 that discovered that Black and Asian American students in the district were overwhelmingly targeted and mistreated by white students. There was an inordinate number of instances documented over a five-year period that revealed that students were called the N-word and other racial slurs.
While Black students only make up about 1 percent of the district’s student population, which is composed of 74,000 students, reports show they were disciplined more harshly than their white counterparts. Even after years of data showed this to be true, the school district had done nothing to address the trend, according to investigators.
It was only until a 10-year-old Black student on the autism spectrum died by suicide after being mercilessly bullied by her classmates at Foxboro Elementary School that the district finally took action. That student, Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor, was the only Black student in her class. Her family filed a lawsuit against the district in which they asserted that kids regularly called Tichenor the N-word and teased her for being autistic.
The district awarded the family $2 million and confessed that district officials mistreated the girl after they were accused of responding poorly to the bullying.
They also awarded three Black students a shared settlement of $200,000 after those students complained they experienced harassment daily.
Although Thomas was hired to address incidents similar to these, the hostile work environment she experienced made it difficult for her to fulfill her tasks, according to her complaint.
In a federal lawsuit, she alleges that district staff treated her “as if she were stupid,” accused her of having a substandard work ethic, and denied her training and mentorship opportunities that were offered to her white colleagues, AP reports.
She cited an incident that took place one month into her position in which a colleague handed her a pile of trash and told her to clean it up during an administrative meeting. When she refused, the colleague was “furious,” according to the complaint.
One year after she was hired, district administrators decided not to renew her contract without providing cause, which effectively ended her employment on June 30, 2023.
She scheduled a meeting weeks before she was let go with the district’s human resources director to discuss the discrimination she’d been subjected to. However, just 15 minutes before the meeting, the assistant superintendent placed her on administrative leave and told her that officials would be investigating her “ethical, moral, or professional conduct.” She never learned what came of that investigation.
“Our hope is that through our efforts to address the violation of Dr. Thomas’ rights, the district will be forced to make systemic change,” attorney Katie Panzer said. “The district has an obligation to provide both students and employees a safe environment free from race discrimination. We would like to see them actually fulfill that obligation.”
The complaint named the school district and two district employees, Fidel Montero and Suzi Jensen, and a third-party consultant, Heidi Alder, as defendants. Thomas seeks damages and possible reinstatement.
A spokesperson for the district declined to comment on the injunction because the district “will not make comments about potential litigation.”
“Davis School District administrators, teachers, and staff stand firmly against any form of harassment or discrimination that affects a child’s learning experience in our schools,” the statement read. “Our primary duty and responsibility is to create a safe environment for every child, employee and patron.”
