A judge’s ruling Monday will allow an ex-teacher to make his case before a jury that St. Paul Public Schools leaders retaliated against him for publicly criticizing the district’s racial equity policy.
Aaron Benner’s 2017 lawsuit claims the district sought to punish him for speaking out against district-wide efforts to remedy racial imbalances in student discipline.
In an order filed Monday following a February hearing, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson largely rejected the school district’s attempt to decide the case in their favor without going to trial.
“The factual disputes in this case are simply too wide, and too important, for the Court to deny Benner a jury trial as to all of his claims,” she wrote.
One of five teachers to speak before the St. Paul school board in 2013, Benner argued a new policy championed by then-Superintendent Valeria Silva would harm African-American students by failing to hold them accountable for bad behavior.
The only black teacher in that group, Benner said district leaders targeted him in the two years that followed. According to Benner:
- Human resources investigated him on four separate occasions in a single year;
- His principal placed unruly students in his class;
- His teaching assistant was fired and not replaced; and
- The district encouraged him to change schools mid-year.
When Benner finally quit to work for a charter school in August 2015, he said it’s because he worried the district was preparing to fire him.
The ruling allows Benner to go to trial on two counts: retaliation under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act and federal workplace race discrimination under Title VII.
Nelson found that a reasonable juror could conclude that the district made Benner’s job so difficult that he’d want to quit or that its numerous investigations and changes to his classroom amounted to “adverse employment action.”
On the discrimination charge, Nelson rejected the district’s contention that Benner had no grounds to sue because he lost nothing when he landed a new job at equal pay.
However, the judge ruled in the district’s favor on two other claims: retaliation under the First Amendment and under federal employment law.
A trial is tentatively scheduled for the week of Aug. 19.
“I’m grateful for the Court’s ruling and look forward to having a jury hear the evidence. I give God all the glory for this favorable decision,” Benner said Monday.