BURBANK : Fired Principal Files Civil Rights Lawsuit

Former Burbank High School Principal Keiko Hentell has filed suit in U.S. District Court, charging that the Burbank School District, Board of Education and superintendent violated her civil rights when she was removed from her job in February.

In the suit filed Thursday, Hentell claims she was demoted and transferred from the school because she is Japanese American and encouraged minority groups on campus.

“We’ve always denied that was any consideration,” Burbank school board President Elena Hubbell said Friday, after hearing of the suit. “We’ve never made any decision based on race or gender.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges the board’s decision in February not to renew her contract, which was due to expire at the end of June, was racially motivated. She also charges that Supt. Arthur Pierce reassigned her to other duties at the beginning of March because she refused to stop a Latino group from having access to the campus.

Hentell is asking for her principal’s job back and an undetermined amount in damages from the district.

Pierce referred all questions about the lawsuit to Richard Currier, attorney for the school district. Currier did not return phone calls Friday afternoon.

“I feel we are on very solid ground,” said Hubbell, who denied allegations that Hentell lost her job as principal because she is a Japanese-American woman.

“I’m a working woman. I would never allow something like that to happen,” said Hubbell, a local realtor.

The lawsuit cites a memo by Pierce that Hentell’s work with minority and ethnic groups on campus and in the community had “caused some members of your staff, some members of the Board of Education, and some members of the community at large, to be concerned that the traditional population served by Burbank High School is being overlooked.”

But Hubbell also denied that the action against Hentell had anything to do with her work with minority groups.

“We’ve always said many of those groups were there before she came,” Hubbell said.

“We’ve never discouraged them--we encouraged them. I’ve always said that if the students initiate it and the kids have an interest in it, I don’t have a problem with it.”

Hentell’s removal from her job as principal prompted protests during school board meetings and at a Burbank High School rally. Letters of objection were also written by representatives of several local human rights and ethnic groups.