Marin County school employee sues over racial video

A Black employee at Tamalpais High School has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the school district violated state and federal laws by failing to notify him about a racist video that circulated in the school last fall.

Kenneth Wayne Price, 46, a campus safety supervisor, was seriously injured on Oct. 6, 2023, when he was called to check out a report of students lingering at a boys restroom at the school, the lawsuit says. Price was unaware that racial tensions on campus were elevated because of the video.

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When Price called into the restroom to tell students to get to class, two Black students and two White students came out. Without warning, they began to fight each other. The lawsuit says Price tried to intervene and was injured in his left shoulder. He screamed in pain, and the fight subsided.

According to the complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Price would have approached the situation differently if he had known about the six-second video that had already spread among the students.

Tamarah Prevost, an attorney for Price, said the district failed to notify Price and other Black employees at the school about the racist video, while White employees were sent an email notification on Sept. 29, 2023 — about a week earlier.

“Mr. Price has been a pillar of the South Marin community for decades,” Prevost said in an email Tuesday. “His serious injury could have been avoided, had Tam High administrators properly informed him, as Campus Safety Supervisor, about the racist video circulated days before his injury.”

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“Now, a critical role model in the school community has been seriously injured,” Prevost said. “This case is about righting that injustice.”

Aaron Fischer, another lawyer for Price, said his client’s shoulder still has not healed, and that the physical pain and emotional trauma linger.

“He has been on leave due to the injury for the last 13 months,” Fischer said. “He is scheduled to have surgery related to the injury soon. It is unclear whether and when he will be able to return to work.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for alleged discrimination, fraud and constitutional violations.

Neither Tara Taupier, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District, nor Kimberly Clissold, principal of Tam High, responded to requests for comment.

According to the complaint, Taupier sent a memo to the school community on Dec. 5 acknowledging “that Black staff members were not informed about the video at the time of administration’s awareness.”

While the specific details of the video, how it was communicated and Price’s injury were not released publicly until now, more than 100 students and members of the Black community marched in protest about week after the incident.

Later, more than a dozen community members attended a school board meeting to press for change. The district pledged to engage all parties in a series of meetings, discussions and workshops. The high school’s sole Black administrator, assistant principal Tara Ranzy, resigned and moved out of the county.

The student video allegedly consisted of a male student repeating a racial slur over and over for a few seconds and laughing, with another male student joining the video, also laughing. The video, apparently shot in late August, was initially only shared among about a dozen students but then began circulating in the student population. A student reported it to a teacher, who notified the administration.

Despite promises of change, racist incidents at Tam High have continued this year. This month, the school football team was placed on probation after reports of a new racist incident. The administration said the team would forfeit its remaining games if there were another incident.

Fischer said the timing of the lawsuit was a matter of meeting the statute of limitations for both state and federal complaints. He said federal civil rights complaints have a two-year statute of limitations, while state complaints must be filed within six months of filing a tort claim, or preliminary notice of intent to sue, which the attorneys did in May.

The attorneys also approached the district earlier this year to “see if we could resolve the issue without going to court, but we were rebuffed,” Fischer said.

Price, a Marin City resident, was not available for comment. A Tamalpais High School graduate himself, he was hired for the campus supervisor job in 2017.

Well known in the Black community as a mentor to students, Price expanded his role at the high school by running student support groups, Fischer said.

“He was connected to the school community for years and years,” Fischer said. “He was much beloved.”