Before Rachel Dolezal started passing as a black woman, she reportedly once sued her alma mater, HBCU Howard University, accusing it of discriminating against her because she was white, the Smoking Gun has uncovered.
According to the report, Dolezal filed the lawsuit for discrimination in 2002, the same year she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree, saying that the university denied her teaching posts and a scholarship because she was a white woman, the site reports. Dolezal, who then went by the name Rachel Moore, named the university and professor Alfred Smith, then the chairman of Howard’s art department, as defendants in the lawsuit that was filed in Washington, D.C., Superior Court.
In her suit, Dolezal “claimed discrimination based on race, pregnancy, family responsibilities and gender,” accusing Smith and other school officials of denying her a teaching-assistant post, rejecting her application for a postgraduate instructorship and denying her financial aid as a student, according to the Smoking Gun.
Dolezal also accused the school of being “motifivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students” when it removed some of her artwork from a 2001 student exhibition, a court opinion detailed, the report notes.
The complaint was tossed out in February 2004 by Judge Zoe Bush, who said there was no evidence of discrimination on any factor, including race. Dolezal was then ordered to reimburse Howard some $2,728.50 for a “Bill of Costs.”
Read more at the Smoking Gun.