Suits Allege Racial Bias at Schools : Education: Teacher says Pomona’s ‘tracking’ system discriminates and that officials threatened to fire her for complaining. They deny her charges.

A Pomona high school teacher has filed two lawsuits against the school district alleging that district officials routinely turn a blind eye to policies that discriminate against black and Latino students and teachers.

Zephyr Tate-Mann, who has taught social studies at Ganesha High School since 1980, filed a federal and a state lawsuit against the Pomona Unified School District that accuses the superintendent and members of the school board of violating her civil rights by threatening to fire her if she kept speaking out about what she perceives as systemwide racial discrimination.

Tate-Mann, who is African American, and two other teachers filed a lawsuit against the district in June, 1992, that dealt with similar issues of racial discrimination, said her attorney, Leo Terrell. Terrell said a tentative trial date for the first suit has been set for June 7.

Pomona Unified’s legal counsel, Adrienne D. Konigar, said the district had just received a copy of Tate-Mann’s second suit and had not yet had time to formulate a formal response. She said the district is vigorously defending itself against Tate-Mann’s accusations.

At the heart of Tate-Mann’s case is the school district’s “tracking” system. Tate-Mann believes that the tracking system is used to fill college preparatory classes with white students while putting Latino and black students in lower-level classes.

As a result, minority students are deprived of textbooks and other materials that would allow them to study at the higher level, the suit charges.

The suit also states that white teachers deride black and Latino students with racial comments disparaging their ability to succeed in college or in classes to prepare for post-secondary education. The suit alleges that black and Latino teachers are excluded from consideration for department chairmanships and denied professional growth available to white teachers.

Finally, Tate-Mann charges that school board officials threatened to fire her when she brought a complaint against the son of a former board president, Linda Stevens, after he apparently turned in notes containing racial epithets after a class discussion about apartheid and equal rights for minorities and women.

Copies of the pages of Judd Stevens’ notebook reveal that he wrote several racially insensitive remarks, including “United States government made AIDS to kill blacks,” in June, 1992. Stevens was never disciplined by school officials, Terrell said.

“They told her she would be fired if (she) continued to keep expressing (her) opinions on this letter,” he said.

“They made these remarks even after they were put on notice that I was representing her. We feel her 1st Amendment rights have been violated. . . . We feel we have a pretty straight-up case,” Terrell said. Tate-Mann is seeking a court order barring discrimination in administrative, teacher and student assignments, plus unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Linda Stevens and other district officials named in the lawsuits said they could not comment on the matter because of the pending litigation and referred all questions to Konigar, who rebuffed the discrimination charges and said Pomona Unified will present records during the trial that will clear the tracking system of any discrimination. She said the district would release the tracking system records before the trial only if a request is filed under the Freedom of Information Act.