Jaramillo v. Adams County School Dist. 14, No. 11-1160 (10th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff-Appellant Judy Jaramillo appealed a grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee Adams County School District 14 on her 42 U.S.C. 1981 claim for race discrimination. Plaintiff was employed as principal of Hanson PreK-8 school. More than 70% of the students attending Hanson are Hispanic, and Plaintiff was the only Hispanic principal in the District. In 2008, the District contemplated policy changes, including implementing an English Language Learners policy, which stresses English immersion (rather than teaching subjects in Spanish as well as English), and operating Hanson on the same academic year as other schools in the District. These proposals were controversial in the Hispanic community and apparently with some of the teachers at Hanson. Dr. Sue Chandler, interim superintendent of the District, received a copy of an e-mail about a planned teachers’ meeting before the public study session which contained false and inaccurate information. Dr. Chandler met with Plaintiff to ask for the name of the person who had misinformed her as to the specifics of the policy. Plaintiff refused to give the name. They met again later in the afternoon and Dr. Chandler questioned Plaintiff about her lack of support for the administration’s policy, and requested that Plaintiff provide Dr. Chandler with the name of the person who informed Plaintiff about the Board’s upcoming study session. Dr. Chandler informed Plaintiff that failing to provide the name would result in disciplinary action. Plaintiff refused to provide the name. Dr. Chandler placed Plaintiff on paid administrative leave; Plaintiff was subsequently notified by letter that Dr. Chandler recommended Plaintiff's termination. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment: "What the record does reveal in this case is disagreement about administrative policy choices --hardly infrequent in the education setting. But that does not constitute pretext [of discrimination]."
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on June 28, 2012.
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