The lawsuit was dismissed, but this Sacramento school must address allegations of racism
Sacramento’s Christian Brothers High School may have escaped a discrimination lawsuit thanks to a legal technicality, but that doesn’t erase the troubling allegations of racist and prejudiced behavior that the school’s former principal has leveled at school officials.
A federal judge tossed out former Principal Chris Orr’s case earlier this month, citing the so-called ministerial exception established under the religion clauses of the First Amendment, according to a story by The Sacramento Bee’s Sawsan Morrar. Due to a United States Supreme Court ruling last summer, faith-based institutions now have broader protections from certain civil rights lawsuits.
Orr, the first-ever Black principal of the 145-year-old campus in Oak Park, was fired in Oct. 2019 after two years in the job. In his lawsuit, Orr alleged that he was fired after criticizing the school’s president, Lorcan Barnes, in a survey.
“When I got the survey, I was nervous,” Orr, who is appealing the decision, told The Bee. “My remarks were critical and positive. I wrote that I am in fear of retaliation, that this is an unhealthy and hostile work environment that I am in.”
Shortly afterward, Barnes informed Orr that the 2019-2020 school year would be his last at Christian Brothers. When Orr took his concerns to the school’s board of trustees, Barnes terminated him “effective immediately.” Two months later, Orr filed a federal civil lawsuit, accusing school leadership of wrongful termination and retaliation.
Orr’s lawsuit outlines the concerns about Christian Brothers’ leadership that he says led to his firing.
“In the court documents, Orr said he was critical of the way Barnes determined tuition assistance levels for students, using the real estate website Zillow to assess the values of applicants’ homes,” Morrar reported. “Orr also said during those admissions meetings, he heard Barnes comment about how many cars were parked outside of students’ homes, and if students had large homes, Barnes would recommend giving them less tuition assistance.”
On multiple occasions, Orr said Barnes arbitrarily overruled a recommendation by an independent needs assessment company to provide $14,000 in tuition assistance to a freshman who was already enrolled.
“When scholarship funds began to run low, Barnes revoked some of that money … upon hearing that the student was underperforming,” Morrar reported.
The goal?
“He once said he was going to reduce (the student’s) tuition assistance to incentivize him to leave our school,” Orr told The Bee.
Orr also alleged that Barnes withheld tuition based on parents’ sexual orientation or citizenship status. In addition, Orr claims that Barnes and some of the school’s tuition assistance committee members made offensive jokes about ethnic-sounding names, or used vulgar language to describe minority groups they rejected.
The decision by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to throw out the lawsuit on a technicality means we won’t have answers on whether Orr’s accusations have merit.
Crystal LeRoy, who has replaced Barnes as the school’s president, said in a statement that she could not comment on the case.
“We do, however, strongly deny the allegations regarding tuition assistance,” she said.
Barnes might no longer head the school, but Orr’s allegations involve other members of the staff who may still be there. Christian Brothers must address the question of whether past school leadership at the diverse school created a culture that normalized racism and discrimination.
The school must also create greater transparency around the tuition assistance process at the heart of Orr’s allegations. And even if Christian Brothers believes it has the right to fire its employees for any reason, staff members should not have to fear retaliation when they advocate for policies that align with the school’s inclusive Lasallian ideals.