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Jury awards teacher $341,000 in Boston Latin School dispute

E-mail|Link|Comments () December 1, 2009 05:06 PM

By David Abel, Globe Staff

A Suffolk Superior Court jury found today that Boston Latin School retaliated against a black teacher after he complained that the elite school’s administrators had discriminated against him by stripping him of an advanced class and replacing him with a less-experienced white teacher.

Jurors rejected Jonathan Bonds’ claim that school officials engaged in discrimination. But they awarded him $341,000 for his claim that the school refused to appoint him chairman of its history department in 2006, after he filed a complaint about the class to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

“I think it’s a very fair outcome,” said Paul Merry , a Boston attorney who represents Bonds. “He thought what happened to him was gross unfairness. We’re very pleased that the jury recognized the unfair treatment that Mr. Bonds received when he was simply asserting his right to protest the loss of his classes.”

School officials said they are considering their options.

“We intend to file further motions for the court's consideration, and therefore have no further comment at this time,” said Matthew F. Wilder, a spokesman for Boston Public Schools.

The decision to remove Bonds from his position teaching advanced-placement economics, which was reversed in 2003 before it took effect, erupted into a firestorm at the school when another teacher placed Old West-style posters in teachers' mailboxes that advertised the coveted Advanced Placement teaching positions and read, "No Black Need Apply."

School officials argued that the school had demonstrated its commitment to diversity, noting that seven of 22 AP teachers were minorities.

Bonds had said administrators told him he was being moved to teach US history in preparation for him to eventually teach AP history. But Bonds, who had worked at the school for four years and taught AP for three, preferred to continue teaching AP economics. He said his students had record scores for the class.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Bonds said the efforts to remove him amounted to a “matter of reputation and honor.”

“If you’re removed for no reason, it’s a blemish on your professional standing,” he said. “Their reason was that the change would give me an opportunity to expand my repertoire of teaching skills. I didn’t buy it.”

He also said administrators rejected him at least three times from being promoted chairman of the history department and at least 11 times for other administrative positions.

He thought the jury would have found discrimination, but he said school lawyers succeeded in having much of the evidence ruled inadmissible.

“I think they were accurate in terms of retaliation, and the discrimination was nuanced and subtle, and difficult for them to determine,” he said.