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Sandy's avatar

Woah, woah, woah--wait a minute?!?!

The District is possibly paying the legal fees for an employee who, IN HER PERSONAL CAPACITY, filed a lawsuit against someone with whom they had a dispute that had nothing to do with her work!?!?

The only way the District was involved is that the defendant sent a letter about Sebaggala to the School Board. The letter had nothing to do with her work at D65 and the District is not even part of the lawsuit. Sebaggala's co-plaintiff is something called "Abolition Coalition."

Is this some sort of variant of a Trump-esque defense--The Assistant Principal Immunity Doctrine?

I can do whatever I want as an Assistant Principal and the District will fund it?

The lawsuit was so frivolous to begin with--when you read the complaint, it amounts to nothing more than Sebaggla being upset that someone was commenting on her Facebook posts with stuff she didn't like (ever hear of the delete button?) and reposting things Sebaggla said in public comment at school board meetings in another district.

Looking forward to see what your FOIA on this comes up with.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Yeah, this story really caught my eye too, so I both reached out to the District this morning and submitted a FOIA request for this. I am aware (and I've written about) a different case involving a student alleging discrimination in 2023, so this could be the settlement related to that. More to come.

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Anonymous's avatar

Presumably, this settlement payment would be for a lawsuit filed on behalf of someone against the District, where the District settled and is now paying out to the plaintiff via the attorney's trust account. I don't think there's any smoke or fire here, and the link to the District employee via the same attorney is just happenstance.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Thats what I would think too

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Tom Hayden's avatar

I've been thinking about this all morning and trying to wrap my head around what the implications are if this is a donation. In general, can a public body finance *any* legal cause? Like, suppose a teacher got hit by a car on the way to school and sued the car owner. Can a public body donate money to the teacher's legal cause? I think the answer is no but I don't know why...

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Truth Seeker's avatar

Wasn’t there also a gofundme set up (yes, it’s the Evanston way) for this Evanston assistant principal related to the situation in a neighboring town??! Good grief. Talk about jumping the shark.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Update: this is a settlement payment unrelated to the lawsuit and gofundme. It's very interesting in its own right. More to come.

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Yes, she raised more than $40k in the gofundme.

Again, no idea if this is related to her case - let's see what the FOIA says...

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Tom Hayden's avatar

Update: this is a settlement payment unrelated to the lawsuit and gofundme. It's very interesting in its own right. More to come.

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