A Black former attorney for the ACLU of Southern California has reached a tentative settlement in her lawsuit against the civil rights organization, in which she alleged she was subjected to racism, portrayed as an angry woman and wrongfully fired in 2020 for speaking out against such treatment.
An attorney for plaintiff Sarah O. Clifton filed court papers Monday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jon R. Takasugi notifying him of a “conditional” accord in the case with the expectation that a request for dismissal will be filed by Aug. 25. No terms were divulged.
The suit was originally filed in June 2020 against the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and ACLU of Southern California’s executive director Hector Villagra. The suit described Clifton’s case as “a matter of urgent public concern” in light of the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the “resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
The ACLU denied all of Clifton’s allegations.
In one of many rulings in the case, the judge found Clifton had presented a prima facie showing of alleged harassment by Villagra, noting that during a staff meeting, Villagra allegedly “blew up, lost his temper and start yelling and arguing with (Clifton) in front of everyone. He also tried to cross-examine her, asking her to provide empirical evidence for her arguments.”
After several minutes, Clifton’ co-worker and colleague, Carolina Briones, stood up and asked Villagra to calm down, back off and suggested that he and the plaintiff have further discussions privately, according to the judge.
Clifton was hired by the ACLU in September 2018 as a staff attorney who worked on issues in the Los Angeles County jails. She was fired on Valentine’s Day 2020 in the middle of Black History Month “for being nothing more than a stereotypical angry Black woman,” according to her court papers, which alleged the ACLU subsequently offered her a $48,000 severance that required arbitration of disputes “in a shameful attempt to silence” her.
Clifton’s mother is Justice Rogeriee Thompson, who was born in segregated South Carolina and was appointed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and assumed senior status last September. Clifton’s father, William O. Clifton, served as an associate director on the Rhode Island District Court for almost 14 years before he died in 2018.