Alleges racial discrimination led to dismissal
A former elementary school principal has sued the Beacon City School District, alleging that discrimination and a racially charged workplace led to his dismissal last year.
Daniel Glenn, hired as principal at South Avenue Elementary in August 2021, filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court on April 18. In the 17-page complaint, Glenn, who is Black, says he was the victim of “disparate treatment and a hostile work environment due to his race.” He asked to be returned to his job with back pay.
Superintendent Matt Landahl said this week that the district cannot comment on the case.
Glenn noted in his complaint that the staff at South Avenue was primarily white. He said that he told Landahl and Deputy Superintendent Ann Marie Quartironi in 2022 “that his job was permeated with racial discrimination on a continuous basis in the structure of how the school operated.”
For example, according to the complaint, when white employees at the school “did not get their way, they leveraged their race as a way to avoid accountability and to cast aspersion and blame on others perceived as less important, less powerful or less privileged.” A minority teacher wrote to Landahl, he claimed, “unequivocally exposing the toxic and racially charged discriminatory work environment,” yet, according to Glenn, “no meaningful investigation was conducted.”
In contrast, Glenn alleged, the complaints of white staff members were “taken seriously and handled expeditiously.”
Glenn claimed that his job performance was “exemplary” but said he was terminated for “pretextual reasons.” He cited two incidents in 2023 that he portrayed as retaliation for his opposition to “unlawful discriminatory practices”: an allegation that he made an inappropriate comment to a female teacher who had recently returned to work after having a child and, a month later, a charge that he failed to adequately address a student’s complaint.
Glenn said he received no notice allowing him to contest allegations against him before being terminated by the school board on May 8, 2023, effective June 7, on Landahl’s recommendation.
Glenn had been removed from his position months earlier; when Kelly Amendola, the current South Avenue principal, was hired in July, the district said that Brian Archer, its director of evaluation and student services, had been the acting principal for five months.
Glenn criticized what he called a “preconceived determination” to fire him, and said the district’s lack of a human resources department deprived him of the right to respond to Landahl’s recommendation. His “career prospects are now ruined,” according to the complaint.
In addition to reinstatement and back pay, Glenn is seeking unspecified compensatory damages. The school district has 21 days to respond.
Before being hired in Beacon, Glenn taught first and second grade for 19 years in the Newburgh district and was an assistant principal for three years in New Paltz.
“…when white employees at the school ‘did not get their way, they leveraged their race as a way to avoid accountability and to cast aspersion and blame on others perceived as less important, less powerful or less privileged.’ ”
I don’t follow the logic of this complaint. What does avoiding accountability or casting aspersions and blame on others have to do with not getting “your way?” (Whatever that phrase might mean.)
If Glenn was discriminated against based on his race, that is obviously unacceptable and needs to be addressed. But I hope the 17-page filing provides clearer and more specific examples to support his case than what has been noted in this article.
What he’s saying is that when both he and a non-white teacher made complaints to the superintendent about racism in school practices, those complaints were ignored, and the white faculty retaliated for his complaints by filing their own complaints against him. In contrast to how the administration handled his complaints of racial discrimination, these complaints were investigated and used as grounds to fire him.
He also claims that this was not handled with proper due process because the district has failed to hire a human resources officer. It is HR’s job to protect the district from this kind of lawsuit.
We know there is racial disparity throughout Beacon schools. This isn’t the first Black principal to leave on bad terms in recent years. Hopefully, the lawsuit inspires some introspection about how to not get sued in the future. Ideally, by being less racist.
Everyone is so quick to jump and find the BCSD guilty of discrimination. Maybe it was a bad hire? Maybe the employee was not up to the responsibilities of the job? Maybe he couldn’t manage the staff? Maybe he avoided speaking to parents when there were disciplinary issues? Who knows? Don’t jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts.