He was called “poor white trash” and “white bitch,” tormented until he was eventually fired and stripped of his teaching credentials.
That’s what former Prince George’s County, Md., teacher Jon Everhart claimed in his racial-discrimination lawsuit against the county school board, alleging that the black principal at Largo High School forced him out of his job, according to the Washington Post. He was ultimately awarded $350,000 in the case.
“Justice was served,” Everhart told the Post in a phone call. “I do feel as though I have been vindicated.”
The amount was based on compensatory damages. Everhart said that he ended up with high blood pressure and heart problems because of his tenure at Largo. He is, however, also due back pay and benefits, the amount of which a district judge will determine later.
The 65-year-old teacher told the newspaper that he was subject to cruelty from the school’s principal, Angelique Simpson-Marcus, for years. “She called me ‘poor white trash’ and ‘white bitch,’” Everhart said in his phone call with the Post. “Her behavior was so outlandish.”
Everhart, who was hired in 2003, when Simpson-Marcus was a physical education teacher, said that Simpson-Marcus told him he would be the first teacher she fired if she became principal. She also said, Everhart claimed, that the “only reason a white teacher teaches in P.G. County is that they can’t get a job elsewhere.”
During his time at the school when Simpson-Marcus was principal, Everhart went from being named Teacher of the Year to getting bad performance reviews. He was demoted from teaching honors English to upperclassmen and was instead put in charge of freshman classes.
“I just think it was a disgrace, and I think that’s what the jury saw, too,” Everhart’s lawyer, Bryan Chapman, told the Post.
For her part, Simpson-Marcus maintained her innocence in an interview. “I never said any of those things,” the principal said. “I don’t use that kind of language.”
Read more at the Washington Post.