Ex-teacher who claimed racial discrimination in Cary District 26 settles suit for $32K

Cary School District 26 will pay $32,500 in a settlement for a lawsuit filed by a former employee who said the district discriminated her because of her race.

The Board of Education approved the settlement agreement in a 4-2 vote last week. The lawsuit came out of closed session because of the state law that requires public entities to disclose any settlement, Superintendent Brandon White said.

The agreed payment includes $8,250 in attorney fees for the plaintiff and $24,250 for damages, according to district documents.

“The parties are entering into this agreement for the sole purpose of resolving the disputes between them,” the agreement states. “Nothing in this agreement is intended, and nothing in this agreement shall be construed, as any admission of any fault, liability or wrongdoing by any party.”

Tien Chau filed the federal lawsuit against District 26 on Oct. 12, 2023 under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 citing the district discriminated her for her national origin and race and “retaliated against her for complaining of race discrimination,” according to court documents.

Chau, who is of Vietnamese descent, started working for Cary Junior High School as an English-bilingual middle school teacher in 2021, according to the original complaint filed by attorney representing Chau, Michael Smith.

In the complaint, Chau said she requested to be referred to as “doctor” for having a doctorate degree in education, but states the district never did so.

“Other non-Asian, non-Vietnamese staff with doctorate degrees were referred to by school staff and administrators as ‘doctor’ and had ‘doctor’ included on their school identification cards,” according to the lawsuit.

Smith claimed in the suit that a school-level administrator said to Chau, “You do not do your job. You just walk around here terrorizing my staff.” Chau took the statement as implying she was a terrorist as a race-based statement because she was the “only immigrant in the building that she was aware of and the vast majority of the staff was white,” Smith said in the complaint.

Another building administrator told Chau on March 10, 2022 that a non-recommendation to hire Chau for further teaching positions would be provided to the Board of Education and asked her to resign, according to the lawsuit. Furthermore, the complaint states that an administrator “doctored an email to fabricate a disciplinary record” of Chau.

Chau then resigned “due to threats” made by the district “regarding her ability to secure state teachings positions in the future if she did not resign,” according to the lawsuit.

“Out of the two other co-teachers that were hired at the same time as [Chau], one was Hispanic and the other was white,” according to the lawsuit. “The Hispanic teacher was also terminated/asked to resign and the white teacher was given an ‘honorable discharge’ near the end of the second trimester, which allowed her to collect unemployment.”

Smith argued in the complaint Chau “suffered lost wages, other economic losses, and emotional distress” and asked for compensatory damages for lost wages, attorney’s fees and emotional distress.

The district denied many of the complaint’s statements in a response filed last year by attorney Stephanie Jones representing District 26.

The district’s “conduct and treatment of [Chau] was based on legitimate, nondiscriminatory and non-retaliatory reasons that were unrelated to [Chau’s] alleged complaints of Title VII violations, and no genuine issue of material fact to the contrary exists,” Jones said in the response. “[Chau] was not treated less favorably than that of other employees due to their membership in any protected class.”

Chau filed the complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who sent a notice of a “right to sue” but did not proceed to investigate the complaint to see if statute violations occurred, according to court documents.

A settlement conference was held on Jan. 23, according to court records. Attorney representing Chau Joshua McCann declined to comment.