Teacher’s Racial Bias Suit Is 1st of 5 on Tap : Courts: C. R. Roberts contends that Centinela Valley district denied him a promotion because he is black. He is seeking $200,000. The trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 4.

The time was 1956. The place was Austin, Texas. The problem was race.

USC’s football team, which included three black players, had come to play the University of Texas. But the management at an Austin hotel did not want the black players staying in the whites-only establishment and asked the coach to tell his players to room elsewhere.

“I said no, and that was it,” recalled All-American running back C. R. Roberts. “If I couldn’t stay with the team, I wasn’t going to go.”

The hotel relented. But Roberts has not when he is confronted with what he sees as racism.

Now, 37 years later, Roberts is battling the Centinela Valley Union High School District, where he has taught business at Hawthorne High School for 29 years.

One of four African American teachers out of 152 at Hawthorne High, Roberts filed suit in federal court last April, charging that administrators refused to promote him because of his race.

Roberts, who earned a master’s degree in educational administration from Cal State Long Beach in 1972, said he believes he had the administrative credentials required for an associate principal’s position at Hawthorne High, but was denied the job when he applied last year. There were two such positions open, and they were filled by a white man and a Latino.

Roberts said he would like $200,000 to make up for the salary he would have received as an associate principal as well as another administrative job he applied for and was denied after filing the suit.

The trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 4. It is the first of five discrimination lawsuits targeting the district that are scheduled for trial next year.

It is Roberts’ second suit against the district, and another example of the racial friction that has besieged the 6,000-student system, which has an enrollment that is 18% African American, 9% Asian and Pacific Islander, 56% Latino and 11% white.

Roberts’ first suit, in 1979, charged that his race was the reason he was replaced by a white woman as business department chair. He was awarded $2,500 in an out-of-court settlement.

In the last four years, the district has received a slew of complaints.

In 1989, three board members who supported a controversial black superintendent were voted out of office. In 1990, a series of interracial fights erupted at Hawthorne and Leuzinger high schools, two of the district’s three schools.

The district reports that since 1990, 19 employees have filed complaints with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Seven of the complaints were dismissed as lacking merit, five were settled, four were voluntarily withdrawn and one is still under investigation. Two of those who have complaints pending also have filed lawsuits.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, moreover, concluded in a report earlier this year that district employees and students were subjected to a “racially hostile environment.”

Acting on a review of the civil rights office report, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into alleged employment discrimination.

While never fully agreeing with the civil rights office report, the district has agreed to take steps under the office’s direction to calm tensions.

Supt. Joseph M. Carrillo said teachers and administrators in the district have met to discuss whether discrimination has affected hiring and promotion.

The district also has formed a committee of community members and employees to advise Daryl Hamilton, who is monitoring the progress of the district’s efforts. Hamilton, who was appointed as monitor by the district and who is principal of the district’s continuation school, Lloyde High School, said he reports to the civil rights office twice a year.

In addition, this spring the district will introduce a curriculum for ninth-graders that will address cultural diversity and conflict resolution, Carrillo said.

Responding to Roberts’ charge that racism played a factor in the district’s decision not to promote him, Carrillo said that jobs are not given on the basis of race.

“People get jobs on their merits, their capabilities,” he said. “Apparently, Mr. Roberts has been passed over, and it’s been based on the interview committee findings that he may not be the best person for the job.

“His application was given the same consideration as the others were,” Carrillo said. He would not comment further on Roberts’ lawsuit or the other suits.

The others suing the district are former Hawthorne High employees Leo Jackson, Jerome Brown and Kenneth Crowe, and former Leuzinger High special education teacher Jimmy Ellis. Jackson was a maintenance worker, Brown was the head of campus security, and Crowe was a principal. All are black and say their dismissals were based on race.

Roberts and the others have criticized the district for lacking minorities in management. In 1988, out of 21 administrators working in the district, six were African American, one was Latino, one was Asian American and 13 were white. This year, there are two African American administrators, three Latinos, three Asian Americans and 11 whites.

Carrillo, who is Latino, said the district is trying to improve minority representation.

Lucia Peele, Hawthorne High associate principal for seven years and an African American, said the district has not done enough and takes discrimination complaints lightly. “These things aren’t imagined,” Peele said. “This is a racist environment; it’s very hostile.”

She filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1991, claiming that the district denied her a promotion to principal because she is black and a woman. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount. Carrillo denied her allegation.

Roberts said he has been partly motivated by dissatisfaction with the outcome of his 1979 discrimination lawsuit. The experience, he said, changed his perception of the system.

“I was stupid,” said Roberts, a tall, soft-spoken 57-year-old who still has the physique men half his age work to attain.

“I thought if I took the money, and worked with the district, everything would be OK. I thought, if you do a good job, you’ll advance.”

Roberts said filing that first lawsuit earned him a reputation as a troublemaker, but he nevertheless has lashed out at what he perceives as bias in the district.

When 2,000 Hawthorne High students walked out of classes in March, 1990, in support of former principal Crowe, who was then being targeted for demotion, Roberts was one of his most vocal supporters. He also encouraged many black employees in the district to file discrimination complaints with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing when they were laid off or denied promotions in 1990 and 1991.

As he approaches retirement, Roberts said getting a promotion no longer is a goal; challenging the district is.

His determination comes in part from his experience playing professional football.

After college, Roberts played for six years with the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. He left the National Football League because of racism, he said.

“I didn’t like the San Francisco coach, because he wanted me to act a certain way,” Roberts said.

“He wanted me to say, ‘Yes sir, no sir,’ and he wanted me to shuffle. Now, I know how to compromise. But I’m never going to shuffle.”