A Black woman hired as the first dean of diversity and inclusion at a private, non-denominational school in Calabasas has settled a lawsuit against the institution after she alleged her contract was not renewed because she upset some parents by playing a video of a teen’s poem, “White Boy Privilege,” not long after the death of George Floyd.
LeRhonda Yvette Greats’ Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit against the Viewpoint Educational Foundation alleged civil rights violations, disparate treatment, wrongful termination, retaliation, hostile work environment, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
The plaintiff’s attorneys filed a notice of settlement Friday with Judge Anne Richardson. No terms were divulged. Viewpoint School is a private, non-denominational school for grades K-12.
In their court papers, attorneys for the school stated that Greats lost her job due to her own errors in judgment. As examples, the defense attorneys state that the plaintiff inappropriately presented a fight scene from an action movie and a video entitled “White Boy Privilege” containing profanity, in both cases without collaborating with her colleagues.
Shortly thereafter, again without working with co-workers, Greats disseminated an R-rated movie to high school students without first previewing the video herself, according to the Viewpoint attorneys’ court papers.
The 60-year-old Greats was hired as the school’s first dean of diversity and inclusion in July 2019. In August 2020, during a Viewpoint School student assembly around three months after George Floyd’s in-custody death in Minneapolis, Greats played a YouTube video of then-14-year-old Royce Mann of Atlanta, who is white, reciting his 2016 poem, “White Boy Privilege,” according to the suit.
After the presentation, some Viewpoint parents were so angry that they demanded Greats be fired, and the school “began a systematic attempt to undermine plaintiff … subjecting her to new and unreasonable amount of scrutiny in her role and utilizing the ambiguity of her job to belittle her efforts, all in an attempt to force her to resign,” the suit alleged.
Greats “stood strong” and resisted attempts to pressure her to quit even as the school forced her to have her curriculum approved, something not done with any other school director, according to her court papers.
“This conduct appears to be a part of the norm and culture at Viewpoint, as the recitation of a … poem written by an eighth-grade boy was the sole factor in plaintiff’s termination,” the suit alleged.
Greats says she was told in December 2020 that her contract was not being renewed because “the school simply could not recover from the damage done at the school assembly” in August of that year.
“As the diversity director, plaintiff was doing her job when she showed the students the YouTube video,” the suit stated. “Generally, diversity directors are required to foster equity and equality, fairness and diversity across the school through community development, including creating, leading and supporting opportunities for involvement.”
The director of diversity is usually considered to be in a leadership role and given the complexity of the role, the director is usually given autonomy in order to best assess diversity issues a school might be facing, according to the plaintiff.
“Nevertheless, (Viewpoint) allowed pressure from parents with deep pockets on campus to be the sole reason to terminate plaintiff,” the suit filed in March 2021 alleged.
But the school’s attorneys say in their court papers that Greats admitted making mistakes and that there is no evidence she lost her job because she is Black.
“Plaintiff herself apologized for the `mess’ she caused showing the `White Boy Privilege’ video and took responsibility for the R-rated movie video,” the Viewpoint attorneys stated in their court papers. “Thus, she cannot provide the requisite specific and substantial evidence to dispute Viewpoint’s legitimate reason for not renewing her contract.”