This article was updated Jan. 7 at 5:30 p.m. with new information about Boyd-Perry’s lawsuit.
Marblehead’s former METCO director has filed a lawsuit against the school district, former superintendent John Buckey and former assistant superintendent Nan Murphy for allegedly creating a “racially hostile work environment.”
Jasmine Boyd-Perry, who is identified in the lawsuit as a Black and Native/Indigenous non-binary female, served as Marblehead’s METCO director from August 2019 to January 2021. She filed a lawsuit on Dec. 31 in Middlesex Superior Court claiming she was “disrespected, disregarded, intimidated, ignored, muted, talked over, harassed, humiliated and isolated” at work.
On the civil action cover sheet filed with her complaint, Boyd-Perrry claimed nearly $600,000 in lost wages and emotional/physical distress damages.
The suit says Boyd-Perry was subjected to a “multitude and pattern of racial microaggressions” and that even in her first meeting with Buckey and Murphy, held on Zoom, she was treated in a “condescending fashion and subjected to unwarranted, hostile, derogatory and negative comments.”
The suit says such actions “sought to diminish the value and humanity of not only the plaintiff but als the student population she was hired to serve.”
Buckey and Murphy did not immediately respond to requests for a comment. In an email to the Current, School Committee Chair Sarah Fox wrote, “The School Committee is unable to comment at all.”
METCO President Milly Arbage-Thomas told the Current on Friday that Boyd-Perry “no longer works for METCO. You should also know that we have no comment to offer in this case because all METCO directors are employees of their town and they report directly to their superintendent. We don’t provide any HR oversight for the district employees.”
Boyd-Perry accuses Buckey and Murphy of telling her to “remain silent about racist incidents” in the district. She says in September 2020, she learned that a group of white students had Zoom-bombed METCO students calling them “abhorrent racial slurs, including the N-word.” Boyd-Perry says when she informed Buckey about it, he told her “not to inform student families and remain silent on the matter.”
Also in September 2020, Boyd-Perry said white supremacist groups in Marblehead harassed students.
“The defendants sought not only to minimize these incidents but also failed to substantively address them and properly protect the METCO student victims,” he complaint alleges.
Boyd-Perry says that during COVID, she was required to work in person, despite having a “chronic medical condition.” At times, she had “no choice but to work from her/their car because she could not go safely into the defendant’s MPS’ office,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit says that Buckey fired Boyd-Perry for “abandoning” her job, but Boyd-Perry claims she was out on medical leave and had not yet received her doctor’s OK to return to work.
Boyd-Perry filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and her suit notes that “at least two other discrimination complaints” had been filed against MPS and Buckey, including one by now-School Committee member Brian Ota, who filed his complaint after Buckey declined to extend Ota’s contract as Glover School principal after the 2021-22 school year.
This is a developing story. Stay with the Current for more details.
