Racially Troubled District Fires Black Superintendent

McKinley Nash, superintendent of the troubled Centinela Valley Union High School District, was abruptly fired Friday, more than four months after students staged massive walkouts to protest allegations of racism in the district.

The controversial administrator, who is black, had been superintendent since 1984. Teachers in the district had criticized Nash for not doing enough to improve student performance and for branding their criticisms of him as racist.

Nash’s performance was a key issue in an upset election last November, in which three school board incumbents who supported him were unseated. The new board declined to state any reason Friday for its unanimous decision to terminate his contract, under which he earned nearly $90,000 annually.

The termination of Nash’s contract, which had been renewed last July and was not due to expire until 1993, was effective immediately, said trustee President Ruth Morales .

Reading from a prepared statement, Morales said Nash had been told “of the several reasons for the board’s action.” But citing board policy on personnel matters, she said none of those reasons would be made public.

Although Nash, 57, was not present at the special board meeting Friday, he later said that he intends to “vigorously pursue” all of his legal rights and that he plans to cooperate with a pending federal investigation into allegations of racial harassment against blacks in the district.

Nash’s attorney, George W. Shaeffer Jr., said he sent a letter to the board Friday demanding that the district pay Nash within 60 days for the unexpired portion of his contract, according to its terms.

Shaeffer also said the trustees provided only a “generalized description” of their reasons for firing Nash.

“We disagree any of those reasons existed or justified the board’s action,” he added.

The district, which has been beset by allegations of racism for the past two years, is being investigated by the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces anti-discrimination laws among educational institutions that receive federal funds. Racial tension, along with the resignation announcement of a popular black principal sparked two days of student walkouts last spring.

Trustee Pam Sturgeon said in an interview that the board’s decision “had absolutely nothing to do with race. . . . It is definitely not racial and had no racial tones or any other kinds of tones to it.”

Shortly after the school board election, rumors began circulating that the new board planned to fire the district’s black administrators as a political payoff to the teachers union. One trustee said Friday that the union had nothing to do with her decision.

The union, whose membership is predominantly white, had clashed with Nash during a bitter contract dispute in spring, 1989, and had backed two of the three challengers to the board.