BY ADRIANA HERNANDEZ
Daily Post Staff Writer
A former ethnic studies teacher at Menlo-Atherton High School is suing the Sequoia Union High School District for alleged racial discrimination and harassment, saying the district did not defend her, calling what she went through “similar to a public lynching.”
Chloe Gentile-Montgomery, who was in the middle of the debate on how the war in Gaza is taught and went viral for a classroom slideshow, filed a lawsuit in San Mateo County Superior Court on April 30.
Parents said at a Jan. 17, 2024, meeting that the lesson Gentile-Montgomery and other teachers taught gave false and incomplete information about the Gaza conflict and may have encouraged antisemitism.
Gentile-Montgomery says in her lawsuit, filed by attorney Reed Williams, that the district’s administration did not protect her from the backlash by parents and after a series of conflicts and harassment by faculty, students and parents.
Gentile-Montgomery says that another teacher, social studies teacher Lan Nguyen, had sent a slideshow lesson plan to teach about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The slideshow went viral, leading to parents signing a petition demanding the district fire Gentile-Montgomery.
Gentile-Montgomery said she became a target of harassment in the form of threatening emails and posters placed on her classroom door, causing her to go on leave. She was asked not to return as a teacher at the district, and she resigned shortly thereafter, according to the lawsuit.
Sequoia Union High School District refused to answer any of the Post’s questions about the lawsuit.
Other lawsuits
Gentile-Montgomery’s suit adds to the series of lawsuits and controversies the district is facing. The Deborah Project, a pro-Israel law firm, sued the district for ignoring a California Public Records Act request related to the district’s ethnic studies curriculum.
The district has also been sued by a group called Parents Defending Education for withholding public records about the M-A Chronicle student newspaper’s copyright takedown of a video from YouTube. The video was a 38-minute documentary by filmmaker Eli Steele called “Killing America,” which showed the district’s decision to get rid of honors classes in the name of racial equity.
Other allegations
Gentile-Montgomery’s lawsuit lists a series of incidents where she was allegedly harassed and targeted for being a black woman.
In the lawsuit, Gentile-Montgomery says on Dec. 15, 2022, Black students informed her of the Physical Education teacher Eric Wilmurt using the n-word when speaking with students of color. When Gentile-Montgomery reported the incident to the Vice Principal, Emily Rigotti, the students partook in a conversation with Wilmurt with her.
This led to a March 2, 2023 racial sensitivity training that ended early after anonymous comments flooded the online portal being used for the training, making racist comments.
Alleged sexual harassment
On March 30, 2023, Gentile-Montgomery submitted a sexual harassment complaint when a student messaged her private Instagram account, according to the lawsuit. She claims she sent an email to Teaching Induction Program Coach Lara Gill, Rigotti and vice principals Tara Charles, Nicolas Muys and Stephen Emmi. The following day, there was a meeting with Charles, Rigotti and Student Resource Officer Demitri Andruha on how to address the situation. Andruha said that the complaint couldn’t be investigated because it wasn’t harassment yet, and compared it to if a student were to hit on her at a bar, according to the lawsuit.
Gentile-Montgomery figured out who the student was when he requested to follow her from another account where he used his name, according to the lawsuit. The student was in Gentile-Montgomery’s ethnic studies class and despite reporting the student to administrators, the student was not removed from her class, making her feel unsafe.
Police incident
Gentile-Montgomery was also involved in another controversy at MA.
Two Black students from Menlo-Atherton High School were arrested by Atherton police officers on April 28, 2023. One of the students was pinned to the ground by an officer at a bus stop across from the campus.
Police arrested them after the student had pushed and made threats against a school administrator.
Gentile-Montgomery learned of the incident and let the Black Student Union organize a protest in her classroom, as she was the group’s advisor. On April 30, she claims she received an email from a white student saying that over 100 students were planning to go to her classroom at the same time. On May 1, 2023, the classroom needed security due to the number of students in attendance, according to the lawsuit.
Menlo-Atherton High School Principal Karl Losekoot held a staff meeting about the police brutality incident on May 4, 2023, according to the lawsuit. The meeting was an open forum for employees to ask questions. Gentile-Montgomery claims she asked Losekoot if she could play some videos recapping the protest and how the incident affected students, but he said that he couldn’t change the agenda.
Losekoot allegedly said during the meeting that he would have called the police again in the situation, causing Gentile-Montgomery to leave the meeting.
As a result of leaving the meeting, Gentile-Montgomery got multiple emails from other teachers, such as Lisa Otsuka, saying that “Aggression only breeds more aggression,” insinuating that she was aggressive when she was only upset, according to the lawsuit.
The district’s board will have a closed session meeting discussing a lawsuit regarding antisemitism in the district tonight at 5 p.m.