http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/top/5_1_WA21_RINGSUES_S1.htm

Reverse-discrimination suit costly to District 60

By Judy Masterson
Staff Writer

WAUKEGAN — The recent settlement of a lawsuit alleging reverse discrimination will cost Waukegan Unit School District 60 and its insurer an estimated $1 million.

Janet Ring, the district's former associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction, who filed a federal lawsuit in 2003 claiming she was [highlight]demoted because she was white,[/highlight] and the Waukegan School Board agreed to an out-of-court settlement last month.

Naming African-American board members Anita Hanna, Jeff McBride, Marvin Reddick and Fernando Shipley as defendants, Ring sought damages of at least $500,000.

The News Sun obtained details of the settlement agreement through the Freedom of Information Act.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Ring will receive an up-front payment of $70,000 from the school district, plus attorney fees, which are estimated at $130,000. [color="Blue"](typical)

But under a three-year employment contract that ends June 30, 2009, Ring will be paid another $413,000 plus benefits, including pension contributions, sick leave, vacation time and full payment of family medical and dental insurance.

According to the agreement, Ring will work for the district — at the behest of the superintendent — from her home in Woodstock, but will also be free to seek full- or part-time work elsewhere.

Legal expenses incurred by the lawsuit are estimated at between $400,000 and $500,000, which will be paid to the four law firms that worked on the case.

Fees for John Joanem, counsel for McBride, Reddick and Shipley, and for Ancel Glink, counsel for Anita Hanna, will be negotiated between the school district and its insurance company.

[highlight]Ring's attorney, John Murphey, of Chicago-based Rosenthal Murphey, said reverse- discrimination cases are difficult to prove and difficult to win and called the settlement "unprecedented."

"For the public sector, in a reverse-discrimination case, I've never seen anything like it," Murphey said. "It's the rare case where there is what the law calls direct or overt evidence of racism. All factors combined here added up to a set of facts we knew we could prove."[/highlight]

Last year, a federal judge found enough evidence to send the case to trial. That evidence included comments and behavior by the defendants indicative of their unhappiness with the racial makeup of the district's cabinet, including a comment by Board President Fernando Shipley, who told Ring shortly after the 2003 election that put a majority of African Americans on the board: "I have four votes to get rid of you any time I want."

Evidence also included comments by the Rev. Robert Evans, who has ties to the board and who, as spokesperson for the Coalition for Better Government, publicly decried the lack of black management in the district and called Ring "an outsider who does not understand the needs of black and Hispanic students."

Defendants in the suit testified the decision to transfer Ring to lesser duties was "based on feedback from many district employees" about her performance. According to one source, Ring invoked the ire of Harlene Shipley, wife of Fernando, who headed Jack Benny Middle School until last year when she took a job in administration at Lincoln Center.

Joanem said the settlement did not include an undisclosed sum in personal, punitive damages sought by Ring from individual defendants.

"The ironic thing for them is that they are doing an unpaid volunteer civic service and yet we have someone paid who wanted to essentially bankrupt them for their decision making," Joanem said. "They still stand by the decision they made."

"If there was ever a more loyal management person I never met her," Murphey countered. "Janet is not the kind of person who sues people. In my 30 years of practice I've never seen anyone as courageous. She took on an institution having to look them in the eye every single day."

Members of the school district watchdog group COSLA, Community Organized for School Leadership Accountability, have been critical of the board decision to demote Ring, who oversaw a $7 million budget and 20 employees before she was given a job as a grant writer. They are angry about the settlement's cost to the district, calling it a thinly disguised "payment plan for damages."

"What they did was unethical, unprofessional and wrong," said COSLA member Roxanne Swanson. "Waukegan is a low-income district; 50 percent of our funding comes from the state. We have classrooms that don't have enough books and teachers who have to buy their own supplies. We could have used that money in a myriad of ways."

Waukegan Schools attorney Tom Morris said the settlement should be considered from the perspective that Ring was never terminated.

"We take the view that she was employed anyway," Morris said. "Will we get value or is it, in fact, a cash payout? That depends on Janet as much as the Board of Education."

06/21/06