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Texas Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas)
Ex-Administrator Was Not Retaliated Against
Ruling: A trial judge properly dismissed a suit by an ISD administrator who claimed she was fired in retaliation for expressing opposition to what she said was the discrimination against an African American principal who was subjected to unwarranted complaints. Jacqueline Lovelace v. Dallas ISD, No. 05-18-00207-CV. Issued July 1.
Lovelace, an African American, worked as a DISD executive director, responsible for 13 schools — including Spruce High School and its feeder schools.
Her responsibilities included supervising the principals of those schools, and an assistant superintendent supervised her.
Lovelace claimed her firing in 2013 resulted from illegal retaliation against her due to her complaint to DISD administrators about how a complaint by a Latino parent regarding an African American elementary principal was being handled in a way that shut Lovelace out of the process and involved the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
The trial judge ruled, and a three-member Fifth Court panel agreed (in this decision), that DISD showed there were nonretaliatory reasons for firing Lovelace — including evidence she had failed to comply with various directives from her immediate supervisor, and failed to carry out her professional responsibilities.
The decision quoted testimony and other evidence referencing, among other things, an observation by a central office administrator, during a visit to Spruce, that the school “was one of the most dysfunctional high school environments [she] had ever seen in [her career] — including students roaming halls unsupervised, several violations of district standards and a lack of leadership from the school’s administration.”