Race & Privileged Education

Race & Privileged Education
Shellonnee Chinn vs. The Elmwood Franklin School
A Civil Rights Case
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Race & Privileged Education
Shellonnee Chinn vs. The Elmwood Franklin School
A Civil Rights Case
Compiled by
The Women Justice League
Winter, 2017
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Ted Kirkland and Shellonnee Chinn
Perspective
Watch the interview: https://youtu.be/iVM_Svz7BZU
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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only
light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Race & Privileged Education
Shellonnee Chinn vs. The Elmwood Franklin School
A Civil Rights Case
Shellonnee’s Story
The story of Shellonnee Chinn, is the story of a
highly effective elementary school teacher at
the Elmwood Franklin School. She was the first
and only African-American classroom teacher
the school had hired over the past 125 year
history of the school. Her employment
experiences at Buffalo’s Elmwood Franklin School, is a story of
race, privileged education and white entitlement. It is a story of
arrogance, deceit, academic dishonesty as well as the wonders of
teaching and discovering early education learners.
It can be difficult to simply understand what racism,
discrimination and racial animus are and the trauma they cause.
As any good teacher would suggest, watch this brief video:
https://youtu.be/ayoSRpQ8I-U
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Federal Court Litigation
The Complaints
Shellonnee B. Chinn, is a 15-year African-American veteran
kindergarten teacher who has devoted most of her adult life to the
education of young children. Plaintiff enjoyed a highly successful
and exceptionally appreciated career as a teacher, entirely at
defendants’ Elmwood Franklin School, until on or about August
2013 when new management took over the day-to-day operations
of the school and conspired to knowingly, intentionally, wantonly,
recklessly and maliciously destroy plaintiff’s career because of
their retaliation, racial, gender and age animus and desire to
preserve what they consider an elite, privileged, and European
(white) centric private school. This is a case of the severe and
adverse consequences of invidious racial, gender and age
discrimination in the workplace, by some of the wealthiest
individuals in Western New York, where a hostile work
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Federal Court Litigation
The Complaints
environment destroys a career and many loving relationships
developed with hundreds of children over a decade and a half.
These are civil actions to recover damages for the
deprivation of plaintiff’s rights or privilege as a citizen of the
United States and to be free of retaliation, and other forms of
discrimination, by defendants for plaintiff exercising a right to
complain and exercise a right to file an administrative complaint
with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission all in
violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well under
the laws of the State of New York.
Four separate lawsuit have been filed in the U.S. District
Court for the Western District of New York against The Elmwood
Franklin School, its’ Board of Trustees, and members of its’ staff.
All cases are now open and pending in the court.
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Federal Court Litigation
The Complaints
Case 1:15-cv-01050-FPG Document 1 Filed 12/15/15 Page 1 of 33
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