A U.S. district court judge has entered an order allowing a race discrimination claim against the Alamance-Burlington school board to proceed, while dismissing a second claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit was originally filed against the board in Alamance County superior court in November 2023 by a former ABSS cabinet-level administrator Keisha Banks, who alleges that racial discrimination resulted in her being pushed out of her job by Dr. Dain Butler just weeks after he took over as superintendent in July 2022. The litigation was later transferred to federal court due to the race discrimination claim at issue.
The school board filed its response to Banks’ suit in federal court on Monday, arguing that “its actions and employment practices were free from discrimination and that actions it took were in good faith, legitimate, and nondiscriminatory.”
In the response filed Monday, the school board denies that the Banks has suffered any damages and that any monetary damages she may be awarded “must be decreased by the amount of earnings, compensation, and benefits provided to her during the relevant time period.”
Banks is currently employed with Orange County schools in the Exceptional Children’s division, The Alamance News confirmed Wednesday.
Banks had been employed as the chief special education officer for ABSS from 2018 until 2022 and reported directly to the superintendent.
Prior to Butler taking over as superintendent, school board members had voted 7-0 on May 23, 2022 to extend Banks’ employment contract as chief special education officer by two years, through June 30, 2024.
In her suit, Banks alleges that shortly after Butler took over as superintendent, she was moved out of her position as the chief special education officer and replaced by one of Butler’s former colleagues, Dr. Kristy Davis, during his previous tenure as a central office administrator.
Davis had previously served as the director of the ABSS Exceptional Children’s division from 2016 until 2018. Butler had previously worked as the director of school administration for ABSS until 2016, when he left to become the superintendent of the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District in Halifax County.
U.S. district court judge Loretta Biggs entered an order on July 24, allowing the suit to proceed on a claim of race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Biggs entered an order two weeks ago that granted a motion by the school board to dismiss Banks’ claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress “for lack of jurisdiction due to governmental immunity, or alternatively for failure to state such a claim,” according to the order filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
Under her claim of racial discrimination, Banks’ suit asserts that, while three other cabinet-level administrators (i.e. assistant superintendents and program directors) were reassigned to other positions after Butler took over, she was the only black administrator to be reassigned. Two months later, Davis, who is white, was brought in to replace her.
Banks alleges that – despite having received the highest ratings on her latest annual performance evaluation – she was effectively demoted to a program specialist position; moved out of the ABSS Central Office on Vaughn Road and into an office at Ray Street Academy in Graham; and began working alongside other employees in the EC division who she had previously supervised.
In a response filed for ABSS in federal district court on Monday, the school board admitted that Banks had received positive performance evaluations; that Banks and three other administrators were reassigned; and that Banks’ subsequent position included duties that involved working alongside other members of the EC department that she had previously supervised.
Banks also contends that, instead of being given a performance improvement plan, which she claims was customary, she was simply informed of her reassignment in a July 19, 2022 letter from Davis, her replacement.
The former EC officer, who had succeeded Davis in the position when she was hired in August 2018, alleges in her suit that several white employees within the EC division had received far less favorable job performance reviews than she had but weren’t demoted.
The school board, however, insists that Banks’ reassignment wasn’t a demotion, based on the response filed in federal court on Monday. The board also denied that an ABSS policy requires an employee’s job performance deficiencies to be identified in an “action plan,” along with benchmarks for improvement, prior to reassignment.
The school board had previously filed a motion to dismiss Banks’ Title VII race discrimination claim for allegedly failing to file her suit within 90 days of her receipt of a “right-to-sue” notice from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), according to federal court filings.
The school board unsuccessfully sought to dismiss the suit in its entirety earlier this year, according to federal court filings.
The school board’s attorney argued in an earlier motion that Banks’ claim of Title VII race discrimination should be dismissed because she had failed to file her suit within the required 90-day time frame, instead filing it 105 days after receipt of the right-to-sue notice from the EEOC.
Banks received the right-to-sue letter from the EEOC in August 2023, according to her suit. She subsequently filed a motion to preserve the statute of limitations in Alamance County superior court early last fall, followed by the lawsuit itself, which was also filed in superior court in November 2023.
The school board’s attorney also contended in its earlier motion to dismiss that Banks’ claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress “must be dismissed” because she’d failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Biggs agreed in her order late last month to dismiss that claim from the suit.
Banks originally sought more than $25,000 in compensatory damages against the school board under each of two claims for relief: alleged race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The order that Biggs entered in U.S. District Court on July 24 allows Banks’ suit to proceed under the claim of racial discrimination.
The school board is being represented for the suit by attorney Stephen G. Rawson of the Tharrington Smith law firm in Raleigh.
Banks is being represented by attorney James E. Hairston, Jr. of Raleigh.
