A Black educator — who left his job in the Grapevine-Colleyville school district amid a “critical race theory” backlash — is suing the district and one of its school board members.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, alleges that trustee Tammy Nakamura defamed former principal James Whitfield by calling educators like him “poison” and making other public comments, violating the terms of a settlement agreement reached when he left the district last school year.
The lawsuit alleges that Nakamura — a conservative trustee — made public comments in June in which she referred to Whitfield as a “total activist” and said a letter in which he denounced discrimination was “the straw that broke the camel’s back … that got him fired.”
"It's why we entered into this agreement to put it to rest. I won't talk about you negatively; you won't talk about me negatively," Whitfield told NBC 5. "We're going to part ways. Like I say, I've done that."
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Whitfield says he just wants to move forward and focus on education.
Grapevine-Colleyville ISD declined to discuss the lawsuit. Nakamura has not yet responded to NBC 5's request for comment.
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What is Critical Race Theory?
Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society. The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race. Proponents also believe race is culturally invented, not biological. Read more about CRT here.
