A racial discrimination lawsuit filed this week claims that a Black teacher was fired from Charlotte Secondary School after white parents complained about a novel he used for Black History Month.
Charlotte Secondary is a charter school with about 170 students in grades 6-8, located on McAlpine Drive in southeast Charlotte. According to the suit, the majority of students are Black, Hispanic or biracial.
Markayle Gray, a Black man, contends that the head of school, who is also Black, fired him after four months of teaching English there because white parents complained about his use of the novel “Dear Martin,” saying it was “divisive and injected what they regarded as unwelcome political views on systemic racial inequality into their children’s classrooms.”
Charlotte Secondary contends that Gray’s firing was “based on legitimate, nondiscriminatory, non-retaliatory reasons,” according to a statement issued Friday by Katie Weaver Hartzog, a Raleigh lawyer. Hartzog declined to discuss details but said the school denies any wrongdoing.
The suit filed by HKM Employment Attorneys, a national firm representing Gray, labels Gray as “another casualty of the book banning sweeping America.” The novel, about a Black teen’s experience with racial profiling and police abuse, has been challenged or removed from several schools across the country as part of a trend toward challenging the way racism is discussed in classrooms.
Earlier this year the North Carolina House passed a bill that would restrict how schools can approach racism and sexism; it has not passed the Senate.
The suit says Gray was hired in October 2022 and fired in early February, after Head of School Keisha Rock told Gray she had gotten parent complaints about his “Dear Martin” lesson. it contends the school bypassed its own policies for dealing with parent complaints and for firing a teacher.
Gray filed a racial discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March. He received a letter saying the agency looked into the matter and decided not to pursue its own case against the school. The EEOC made no determination about the merits of the complaint and authorized Gray to file suit.
Gray’s suit, filed in District Court, seeks back pay and damages.
