BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
A Los Alamos Public School District parent Luckie Daniels has filed a civil lawsuit in First Judicial District Court against LAPS Supt. Jennifer Guy and Asst. Supt. J. Carter Payne, as well as School Board members Antonio Jaurique, Christine Bernstein, Ellen Specter, Melanie Colgan and Sondra Wyman. The complaint consists of 85 pages and has been assigned to Judge Jason Lidyard.
In documents filed Monday, Daniels states that over the past 15 months she has without success sought relief and accountability from the LAPS to address incidents of discrimination and race-bias experienced by herself and her daughter Jaiya Devi Daniels. She says she has sought relief through direct redress with the LAPS administrators and board members named in the complaint, made multiple attempts to support the development of a District Equity Council mandated by the Public Education Department, advocated for participation in equity-focused strategic planning lead by the District and agreed to work as a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging (DEIAB) Strategist “to guide the District in correcting the very violations being cited”.
“I have also escalated multiple complaints to the Public Education Department (PED)/Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression (ARAO) Division, throughout 2022 and 2023,” Daniels states. “All efforts to have been unsuccessful, affording the Civil Rights violations cited (Title VI, Title VII and IIED) to continue. I have exhausted all administrative remedies.”
Daniels claims that from her first engagement with LAPS in September 2022, LAPS District administrators, former Supt. Jose Delfin, Supt. Guy, Asst. Supt./Title IV Coordinator J. Carter Payne along with current Board members have denied her and her minor daughter the Title VI and Title VII nondiscrimination protections afforded to them by federal law. Daniels states that those named in the lawsuit have with knowledge and intent repeatedly violated LAPS policies related to Nondiscrimination, Parent Grievance, Parent Participation, Comments From Public Board Meetings, Code of Ethical Responsibility of the Education Profession and Employee Speech.
The lawsuit states that on September 13, 2023 following a LAPS District teacher’s multiple use of the N-word during an English 11 class on August 30 that prompted no investigation or corrective actions by the LAPS, Daniels “filed a Discrimination Complaint with the Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, citing the classroom incident”.
“On September 15, 2023 I filed a formal Discrimination Complaint with the LAPS, requesting an independent investigator be engaged to investigate my allegations. The District engaged Treesineu McDaniel of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost. Ms. McDaniel was provided a document of 11 compiled allegations on October 10, 2023 and access to a Google Drive folder of 140 historical documents and communications providing time-stamped details of incidents. New Mexico ACLU, the Public Education Department, Identity, Equity and Transformation Division and the Attorney General of New Mexico have also received filed complaints related to the above referenced violations,” the lawsuit states.
After 30 emails Daniels states that she made a request to publicly address the Board to share the experience of her family since moving to the Los Alamos community. She said her request was denied and she was given two minutes to speak under public comment. Each Board member was given copies of communications with Delfin and Guy but Daniels said she never received any follow up from Board members. The complaint states that since 2022 it has been the practice of Guy and the Board to deny her the rights afforded by LAPS Policy 1121, which addresses comments from the public at School Board meetings.
Daniels believes she is entitled to compensatory damages of $158,400, punitive damages of $300,000 and pain and suffering damages under Title VI, Title VII, IIED and breach of contract.
“Punitive damages are appropriate here because LAPS actions were intentional and deceitful and motivated by ill will and malice,” the complaint states.
Daniels filed the suit pro se but if she is able to retain counsel, she will also ask the Court for attorneys’ fees.
Another issue addressed by Daniels in the complaint is that in July 2022, she sought information regarding the LAPS Equity Council. She had worked to stand up the Taos Charter School’s Equity Council and was considering volunteering her time to support the LAPS Equity Council. Daniels said her early communications were with Guy who at that time was Interim Superintendent. Within the first two emails she said Guy, whom she had never met, offered to let her lead the Equity Council work and expressed interest in meeting her.
Daniels said Guy made a point of not addressing her questions about the Equity Council’s formation, member participation and work. When she reiterated her need to understand the Equity Council work happening in the district, Guy stopped responding to her emails, Daniels said. After two weeks she followed up with the Superintendent Delfin to request a meeting. At that time Daniels said Guy replied to her last email but did not provide the Equity Council details and told her Delfin would be better equipped to help her.
“Over a couple of months it became apparent that LAPS did not have an active Equity Council. There were no historical documents to view and no meeting minutes to post via the District’s site. Delfin refused to respond to my questions via email and said he would need to meet with me so that his words would not be ‘misconstrued’. The District did not meet my request for access to the Equity Council Google drive they had established in 2020 and my requests to Superintendent Guy to be invited to equity Council meetings that were being planned were ignored,” Daniels said in the complaint.
On October 24, Mike Adams, a parent with the Native American Parent Advisory Council alerted Daniels to an Equity Council meeting happening later that day. Daniels said she attended and “found 30+ mostly White, female LAPS educators/administrators gathered to discuss equity in the District”.
“I raised a complaint with respect to the absence of unrepresented and marginalized parents, students and community members. I challenged the absence of any real work on equity having been completed by the Council and requested a copy of the annual (Public Education Department) Equity Council update required of each District School,” the complaint states.
Daniels said she has never received a copy of the annual report and that following that meeting Delfin and Guy discontinued Equity Council meetings. She said she only has received Equity Council access and documentation in response to an (Inspection of Public Records Act) request to the District. She said Delfin discussed her with Guy.
“When Jennifer Guy and I met on December 15, 2022, she commented that Delfin believed he knew who I was – a thug. It was implied that Delfin saw me as a threat whose sole intention was to sue the District,” Daniels said.
In November 2022, after being subjected to hearing racial and ethnic slurs made by students, Daniels said her daughter attempted to report the issue to then LAHS Asst. Principal Mike Johnson. She said Johnson was “unavailable” to address her daughter’s complaint and her daughter had contacted her “frustrated”.
“After I contacted the LAHS office to speak with Mike Johnson and Jaiya’s counselor Gail Eustis, a meeting to address my concerns was scheduled. Both Mike Johnson and Gail Eustis acknowledged not engaging LAHS’s marginalized underrepresented students, including my daughter. They admitted there was no LAHS policy in place to address racial and offensive language. Both Mike Johnson and Gail Eustis admitted to not having any cultural competency knowledge development. Mike Johnson blamed the LAPS District for his limited knowledge. Gail took responsibility, apologized and committed to doing better. Following our meeting, Mike Johnson met with Jaiya. He created a burdensome process where Jaiya would report an offense to Arturo Rodriguez and Mike Johnson would follow through with disciplinary action,” Daniels states in the complaint.
She said she challenged the fairness of these actions against students asking how students can be expected to understand cultural awareness that is not being taught in the District or modeled by LAHS staff.
“From my understanding Mr. Johnson created a three strikes list that logged offenses and identified levels of discipline actions,” Daniels said.
With regard to addressing the School Board, Daniels said she often addressed the Board requesting intervention and that LAPS engage an equity partner to address District discrimination and racism. She said no actions were undertaken by any of the LAPS administration or Board members.
“This cycle of the LAHS School Board limiting my comments has been repeated for the last 15 months,” Daniels said.
Daniels said from September to November 2022 she frequently copied PED’s Identity Equity and Transformation Division and Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression Hotline on communications to Guy and Delfin. In November 2022, the Black Education Act team led by Vicki Bannerman visited LAPS to investigate an incident involving Los Middle School football players chanting, “Go back to the Res” following a football game with Santa Fe Indian School.
“Shortly after, it was announced that Delfin was on ‘personal leave’ and would not be returning. Jennifer Guy was named Interim Superintendent. None of the protections outlined in the New Mexico Black Education Act have been afforded to Black students in the Los Alamos Public Schools. No information regarding the PED BEA audit in November 2022 was shared with me by LAPS or PED. I have never from September until today received any response or follow-up to multiple discrimination complaints submitted to LAPS or PED via the ARAO system. Though issues were identified during the PED BEA visit they were addressed privately with Jennifer Guy and Jose Delfin, Daniels said.
In December 2022, Daniels asked to meet Jennifer Guy following the departure of Delfin.
“(Guy) suggested a clean slate to begin the year with a commitment to work together to progress equity in the District. Jennifer suggested engaging me as a LAPS consultant to provide Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging guidance. At her request, I drafted a proposal for services sent December 27, 2022 that was approved without changes by Jennifer Guy. A district purchase order was generated. During our meeting on December 15, 2022, Jennifer Guy stated that Delfin believed he knew me and viewed me as ‘a thug’”.
Daniels said Guy told her Delfin directed Guy, Sal Zapien and all involved to not communicate with her, to not share Equity Council information with her, to not provide her access to Equity Council documents, and to not allow her participants in Equity Council activities.
“She apologized for how I had been treated. I began work as an LAPS-engaged DEIAB Strategist on January 23, 2023. I believed that I had been engaged in good faith by Supt. Guy to execute supported DEIAB work in the LAPS District. This is evident in the amount of DEIAB emails, updates and activities I reported on. I did not know December 15 when I met with Supt. Guy that LAPS had been mandated by the Department of Education of Civil Rights to address Title VI non-compliance specific to the mismanagement of discrimination complaints. The intervention resulted from an OCR racial harassment investigation that (Guy) and (Payne) concealed from me – the District’s DEIAB Strategist and the Los Alamos Public Schools community. As my work progressed, it became clear that Jennifer Guy, like Delfin, also viewed me as a threat. I was excluded from interaction with most LAPS District staff and community partners in my main capacity. My engagement was not formally shared with LAPS District staff or the community. I had no engagement with anyone in the LAPS District involved with addressing equity issues. I was not informed of discrimination complaints being actively addressed by (Guy) or (Payne) or made aware of the open OCR intervention addressing the Title VI noncompliance. Although I was repeatedly told by (Guy) I would be. I was not invited to the district equity-centered District audit efforts, nor included in the strategy equity planning work that followed,” Daniels said.
She stated that aside from (Guy) and (Payne) she had no interaction with respect to DEIAB work she was engaged to execute. On May 19, 2023 at the LAPS District Office, (Guy) stated to herself, DaVonna McQuarters, Ashley White and James Payne that she had continued to ‘screw up’ my work and apologized.
“She offered that over the past months of my engagement, she had become ‘more aware’ of District racism though efforts for change were null. She openly admitted the reason for moving forward with hiring a DEI Coordinator for the District was because ‘somebody had to be held responsible’ and said I had refused to continue working with her,” Daniels said.
“The LAPS School District did not hire me in good faith. Jennifer Guy engaged my professional services under false pretenses while concealing OCR actions pertinent to me as the DEIAB Strategist hired by the District and as a Black person who has experienced persistent District racism and ‘made discrimination claims’. Not only did (Guy) and (Payne) knowingly conceal ongoing race equity issues being reported in the District, I was encouraged to produce work products (Guy) and (Payne) had no intention of moving forward. I was led to believe by Guy that I would be engaged by the District as a DEIAB Strategist through July 2024. When disciplinary actions to address staff discrimination became necessary, (Guy) attempted to reduce the scope of my approved work, de-prioritized DEIAB commitments and canceled our bi-weekly status meetings. The bias I experienced stunted my ability to be successful in the work I was hired to execute and Jennifer Guy’s perpetual deception and misleading directives reflect fraudulent inducement and a breach of contract. LAPS District discrimination and bias compromised my DEIAB efforts in addition to causing emotional distress and employment uncertainty,” Daniels said.
In Count 5, related to the omission of Black History Month observance in February 2022, Daniels states that her daughter made multiple attempts to engage Mike Johnson because there was no recognition of Black History Month at LAHS. Daniels claims Johnson was not responsive until he received a call from her with a request to meet. She met with Principal Renee Dunwoody, Asst. Principal Suzanne Montoya, and Johnson.
“In the meeting (Montoya) questioned my credentials and ability to provide DEI ‘training’. She challenged every point I attempted to make with respect to the importance of recognizing all cultures at LAHS, often countering that I was making assumptions about who she is given that she was married to a ‘brown man’ and had ‘brown children’. She informed me of her Master’s degree in Language, Literacy and Cultural Studies and how she had ‘Black cousins’, that she was raised next door to a Black family who was ‘like family’. When I attempted to address Mike Johnson’s lack of progress with engaging under-represented students, (Montoya) felt a need to defend him. She informed me that I was unaware of the work he did and had no right to speak to him ‘in this manner’. (Johnson) again blamed the District for his lack of cultural awareness and told me I should continue ‘educating’ them. Dunwoody remained silent. After they left, she apologized for their behavior assuring me that any staff unwilling to do the work in equity was not going to be part of her staff. She also added that Montoya was adjusting to her role as Assistance Principal. I addressed this meeting in a follow-up communication to Dunwoody identified as a ‘parent complaint’”, Daniels said.
In another count, Daniels addressed what she called NMAA official misconduct. She said her daughter was ranked No. 1 in the state across several events in track and field. An instance of “official misconduct on April 28, 2023, at a track meet shifted her 100 m ranking. False event times were entered for some 30 youth athletes. She immediately reported the error to the NMAA, her daughter’s Coach Ernie Martinez and Athletic Director Ann Stewart who in addition to her role as Athletic Director at LAPS sits on the Advisory Board of NNMA.
“NMAA executives refused to address my formal complaint. Additionally I had to pressure Ann Stewart to speak on behalf of my daughter and me and subsequently to file a complaint from the LAPS District,” Daniels stated.
Stewart informed Daniels that the NMAA would be “more inclined to engage with” her due to their preexisting relationship. Daniels said IPRA requests from May 8, 2023 to the NMAA and participating schools remain unanswered. She said NMAA deferred Daniels’ representation in this matter to the District.
“Jennifer Guy acknowledged that Jaiya and Coach Ernie Martinez were being targeted by the NMAA but declined to provide me with insight into how our complaint, which also cited discrimination in addition to misconduct, would be resolved. There has been no update on the matter since May 8, 2023,” Daniels said.
Another count referred to the Equity Council’s Spring Reboot in February 2023. Daniels said the reboot of the Equity Council was part of her Equity Council work.
“I was informed by Jennifer Guy I would be working with Kristine Coblentz and Sal Zapien. I initially scheduled a time to meet with them to discuss expectations for the work ahead and to begin Equity Council planning. I immediately encountered resistance on their part to working with me. Both frequently did not respond to email communications and did not provide insights into the work they were doing together. When their resistance became a roadblock to moving forward, I asked to meet with Jennifer Guy, Kristine Coblentz and Zapien. I was told by Zapien that he ‘did not trust’ me and that he feared I would go “off the rails” referring to my previous interactions Jose Delfin in 2022. He told me how I should approach the work and focus less on documenting. Coblentz reiterated that she did not trust me and that I had already ‘broken trust’ by communicating to ‘her school board member’. She said she would not disclose to me who was accepted to participate in the Equity Council because she needed to ‘protect them from me’. Jennifer Guy was present to witness all that transpired. After realizing I would not be afforded an opportunity to contribute to the reformation of the Council I requested a seat on the Equity Council. I was denied. Potential Equity Council members were vetoed by Zapien and Coblentz. The applicants were undisclosed and at a certain point an attempt to get members to sign a (non-disclosure agreement) identified as ‘house rules’ was socialized. At a subsequent meeting (Guy) acknowledged that the behavior of Zapien and Coblentz was discriminatory but asked me what I expected her to do about it,” Daniels stated.
She said there are many emails about this and associated questions related to Equity Council. I also informed (Payne) of their behavior. Payne frequently missed meetings related to ongoing DEIAB work, an absence Daniels said she now believes was intentional to “allow plausible deniability with respect to OCR and other raised equity issues Payne was addressing but concealing from’ her.
Daniels said she views the actions of Zapien and Coblentz as “retaliatory, discriminatory and rooted in bias”.
“This reflects workplace exclusion, macro aggression and gaslighting,” she said.
Since September 2022 Daniels said she has made repeated requests that the District provide students, parents, community and Board members with monthly status reports highlighting DEI efforts on issues at LAPS. This request was reiterated by Daniels in 2023. Although Guy immediately agreed that this was necessary, she said the request has never been addressed or responded to by LAPS administration.
“LAPS District community members have no visibility of the ongoing race and discrimination issues being concealed by District leadership, from the District incident involving the Los Alamos Middle School footballers chanting, ‘Go back to the Res” to LAHS students showing up for a volleyball game wearing ‘wife-beater T-shirts’ and shower caps for what they identified as a ‘White Out’ to LAHS coaches, parents and staff drinking on campus during an overnight lock-in of 48 volleyball players. LAPS District has a history of concealing discrimination, racism and wrongful actions occurring in the LAPS District community,” Daniels stated. “LAPS District transparency, communication and ethical decision making should not require an OCR ‘mandate’ or ‘monitoring’, however as we have learned from the OCR Title VI action, District leaders require measures of accountability. Equity in this District must be prioritized and visible.
Daniels alleges she was omitted from District equity centered strategic planning although she was “repeatedly told by (Jennifer Guy)” that she would be.
“I was not invited to the equity-centered District audits or the strategic planning work that followed. There were multiple opportunities for engagement extended to other community members but I was not afforded any although I requested to meet with the facilitator several times. One of the findings of the audit identified the lack of diversity, parent engagement, yet I was excluded from participating as an African-American parent in the District and an engaged DEIAB consultant. I believe Jennifer Guy’s actions in relation to this matter are biased and discriminatory reflecting her unwillingness to offer me an opportunity to share my personal experiences in the District as a new community parent and engaged equity professional.” Daniels said.
The Los Alamos Reporter will report in detail on the LAPS response to Daniels’s complaint when available.