CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina's Court of Appeals upheld a dismissal earlier this week regarding a lawsuit filed against Charlotte Latin School over changes made to its curriculum in the wake of George Floyd's killing in 2020.
Two parents sued the school in 2022, claiming their children were expelled after meeting with administrators about the curriculum in 2021. The opinion said the parents claimed the private school made a shift in providing reading materials, lessons, environment, and staff training after a 2020 video series and letter from the head of school was sent to families, alumni, and staff that focused on a "political agenda".
The parents were part of a larger group called Refocus Latin, which asked to meet with the school's board to discuss concerns about the changes. They met with the board in 2021 to express concerns and share a slideshow. Refocus Latin's presentation claimed the video series was false propaganda, that certain materials were "unpatriotic", and that the school's culture was "replacing American customs and values with 'Wokeism'".
The day after an August 2021 meeting, the board chair said neither they nor Charlotte Latin's administration would be responding to a presentation shared by Refocus Latin and that no further dialogue would be held. Further, the group was asked to speak directly to the school administration.
However, the slideshow presented by Refocus Latin was then sent to other parents. The school head met with faculty urging them to direct parent complaints or concerns to him.
The parents who filed the suit claimed one child's teacher made comments pushing a politically progressive agenda and wouldn't let him lower his mask to drink water or use the bathroom on request. When they met again with Charlotte Latin leadership in September 2021, the teacher denied this. The head of the school terminated the contracts for both children, and they had to leave after the meeting.
The suit, filed in April 2022, claimed Charlotte Latin's termination of the enrollment contracts was fraudulent or unfair, that school leadership misrepresented the educational opportunities and curriculum, caused emotional distress to the family, breached the contracts, and defamed the parents. The school filed for dismissal in July 2022, which was granted by the Mecklenburg County Superior Court in October 2022. Days later, the parents filed their appeal.
Two of the three judges on the appeals court ruled in favor of the school. Judge Carolyn Thompson wrote the majority opinion and said Charlotte Latin didn't breach the enrollment contracts because of "the plain and unambiguous language" in them, which allowed the school to terminate at its discretion. An amicus brief was also filed by both the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Independent Schools that said independent private schools have the right to define their culture, which may land anywhere along an ideological spectrum. The majority agreed with the brief, saying the suit could have chilled speech at private schools if allowed to proceed.
The court also said the parents renewed their children's enrollment contracts each school year and did so despite knowing about the cultural shifts happening at Charlotte Latin. It also said the termination of their children's contracts wasn't an act of retaliation, that school leadership didn't commit fraud against them, that the school didn't deceive them, and that the school terminating the enrollment agreement did not negligently cause stress to the children.
Another conclusion the court made was that Charlotte Latin's head of school and the board didn't defame the parents when characterizing the presentation shared by Refocus Latin in an email sent to families, faculty and staff after the September 2021 meeting. The parents said the head of the school falsely claimed them to be making "racist accusations" about students and faculty. During that meeting, the school head said the parents of Refocus Latin, including the two who filed suit, "believed that the school 'accepts students and hires faculty because of their color' and that students and faculty of color 'are also not up to the merit of the school.'" The email the following day said school leadership rejected an assertion "that diverse students and faculty have not earned their positions and honors" and that the belief that diversity harms school excellence was wrong.
The court pointed to a slide in the presentation that said, among other concerns, that parents were worried that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices were "superseding optimizing evaluations for admitting most qualified students and hiring most qualified faculty". The court said leadership's characterizations of the presentation were not materially false because of this.
Judge John Arrowood concurred in his own separate opinion. He specifically said the case was about "basic contract interpretation", and that a threat to the right to freely contract in North Carolina would "embolden parents who disagree with their children's private schools on divisive social issues" to file otherwise meritless suits. In one example, Arrowood wondered about the possibility of parents enrolling a child in a private Christian school with the intent to challenge the school's religious practices as an example.
Judge Julee Flood dissented, however, claiming the ruling was "premature" and the case demanded further fact-finding. She also said it was not in the court's ability to determine at this stage whether Charlotte Latin was justified in terminating the enrollment contracts. She would have remanded