Principals strike back, file federal suit alleging “conspiracy” to silence critics of “One Newark”
The five Newark school principals and one parent leader punished by state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson for speaking out against her plan for closing public schools have filed suit against her and the school district in federal court, contending their First Amendment rights were violated and they were subjected to “public ridicule and scorn.”
“By their action in suspending the Plaintiffs from their respective school principal positions with the District, the Defendants have launched a concerted effort to undermine, intimidate and coerce employees of the District, including the Plaintiffs, and members of the public…into agreeing with them on all issues related to any proposed organization plan of the school district,” reads the complaint filed Friday in federal court in Newark.
West Orange attorney Robert Pickett, the former counsel to the Newark school board, filed the suit in behalf of H. Grady James, principal of Hawthorne Avenue School; Tony Motley, Bragaw Avenue School; Dorothy Handfield, Belmont-Runyon School; Deneen Washington, Maple Avenue School and Lisa Brown, Ivy Hill School.
The complaint also asks the court to lift the ban imposed on Daryn Martin, the