ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
MEMO: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
A Franklin County teacher and a civil-rights activist may have conspired in a "personally vengeful" campaign to punish another teacher who made controversial racial remarks, a federal judge in Roanoke has ruled.
Although it will be up to a jury to decide, Chief U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser said there is sufficient evidence that the two black women may have conspired in a "maliciously discriminatory" manner toward a white Franklin County High School teacher because of her race.
Federal law that protects blacks from being deprived of their rights because of race also applies to whites who are conspired against by blacks, Kiser wrote in an opinion in the case of former teacher Lari Scruggs.
Kiser ruled that former teacher Lari Scruggs' lawsuit against the two - another former teacher and the director of the Franklin County NAACP chapter - may go forward. Scruggs alleges that the two conspired to punish her for her comments on interracial dating by destroying her career.
The publicity after Scruggs' comments in February 1993 were made public inflamed the high school and Franklin County residents. Both Scruggs and the teacher who complained about her were put on paid leave because of threats and rumors of a student riot, which never happened.
Scruggs also is suing the Franklin County School Board and two administrators, seeking $2 million and reinstatement to her job. The adequacy of the administrators' investigation of her comments also is a matter for a jury to decide, the judge ruled earlier, as is the question of whether they violated her First Amendment rights.
Scruggs was not rehired in 1993 after she made the controversial statements about race to two students during a study hall. The two women she is suing brought the matter to the administration's attention, talked to the media and tried to get the state to investigate.
Scruggs accuses teacher Nadine Keen and Linda Edwards-White of conspiring together and with state officials to have her punished after her comments. Kiser found no evidence that the two conspired with officials and dismissed part of Scruggs' suit, but ruled that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the two conspired together against her.
Keen, an English teacher at the school, reported the alleged remarks to school administrators. Edwards-White revived a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People soon after the incident. She also contacted the Virginia Department of Education to complain that the Franklin County schools did not respond adequately and to request an investigation.
Kiser was ruling on a motion by the defendants to decide the case in their favor before it goes to trial. But he decided there is enough of a factual dispute to let it go to a jury. The trial has not yet been scheduled.
Kiser found that because of the controversy, Scruggs in the future likely would refrain from expressing her views on such matters.
"Such involuntary personal restraint of one's speech, borne of fear and intimidation, constitutes an actual deprivation of the plaintiff's right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment," he wrote.
Keen and Edwards-White also have a First Amendment right to speak out on the issue and to petition government bodies, but those rights have boundaries, Kiser said. "They do not have the right, however, to engage in a conspiracy to maliciously damage the plaintiff's reputation and job opportunities because she expressed views that were an anathema to [the] defendants'."
Scruggs resigned after she was told that her contract would not be renewed. Keen also resigned at the end of the 1993 school year.
The incident occurred in February 1993, when two students approached Scruggs while she was monitoring study hall and asked her about an upcoming Black History Month program and what she thought about whites dating blacks. The students relayed the conversation to Keen, who complained to the principal that Scruggs referred to the history program as a "nigger" program and lectured the two white girls against dating black boys. Scruggs has denied using the epithet and said she told the girls that interracial dating leads to personal problems, citing examples at the school.
The two students originally were named as defendants, but Scruggs agreed this summer to drop them from the suit.
Lawyers for Scruggs and for Keen and Edwards-White could not be reached for comment.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB