White teacher wins $350K discrimination award against suburban DC school district

BEN VELDERMAN eagnews.org UPPER MARLBORO, Md. – A Maryland jury has awarded a white teacher $350,000 in damages for being discriminated against by his former principal, an African-American woman. The Washington Post reports teacher Jon Everhart, 65, filed a lawsuit in 2010 against Prince George’s County Public Schools on the grounds that Largo High School Principal Angelique Simpson-Marcus subjected him to abuse because of his race. Everhart claims Simpson-Marcus called him “poor white trash” and “white b—-,” and told students that the “only reason a white teacher teaches in (Prince George’s) County is that they can’t get a job elsewhere.” Simpson-Marcus’ hostility toward Everhart reportedly began in 2003 when both were working as teachers in Largo High School. Everhart says Simpson-Marcus told him that if she ever became principal, he would be the first person she would fire, the Washington Post reports. Bryan Chapman, Everhart’s attorney, said that when Simpson-Marcus became the school’s principal in 2007, “Everhart, who was once named the school’s Teacher of the Year and who received stellar evaluations, started to receive unsatisfactory performance evaluations,” the news site reports. to read more: eagnews.org