CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte, North Carolina, teacher is suing the charter school he used to work at after he claims he was fired after parents allegedly complained about him teaching a fictional book involving a racially profiled Black teen.
Markayle Gray, a former English teacher at Charlotte Secondary School, claims in a civil lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday that he was terminated from his position as a 7th and 8th-grade teacher on Feb. 2 following backlash from parents over his teaching of the 2017 young adult novel"Dear Martin."
"Mr. Gray was never given a written explanation of why he was being terminated and never given a detailed explanation," Artur Davis, Gray's attorney, told ABC News."But there was a reference to complaints about this book being taught, and that was the end of it." "Since this is a personnel matter, we are limited in what we can say about the reasons for Mr. Gray's termination," attorney Katie Weaver Hartzog told ABC News in a statement."However, I can say that the termination of Mr. Gray's employment was based on legitimate, nondiscriminatory, non-retaliatory reasons. The school denies any and all allegations of wrongdoing and intends to vigorously defend the suit.
Davis said that Gray assigned the book for students to read in January and intended to include it in his lessons during Black History Month in February. The lawsuit claims the school did not follow its protocols for termination, including terminating an employee mid-year"without a history of corrective action and without any evidence of school policies being violated by the teacher."Since his termination, Davis said that Gray has had to switch professions and is now working in real estate because his firing in the middle of the school year"has reputationally been very damaging.
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