Jury awards former Baltimore City principal $100,000 following discrimination verdict

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A jury has found Baltimore City Schools discriminated against a former principal who sued the school system for wrongful termination.

It was a moment four years in the making for Angel Lewis. And while she feels vindicated, she says she’s not done yet.

“Overwhelming in one word,” said Lewis when describing the last four years of her life, which she spent suing her former employer, Baltimore City Public Schools.

Lewis took the lawsuit all the way to trial, where a jury awarded her a six-figure payout.

“When I look in the mirror, I see somebody who stood up for herself,” she told Project Baltimore.

Lewis was hired as principal at Claremont Middle/High School in east Baltimore in 2016. She claimed in her lawsuit that North Avenue terminated her after she began reporting what she found at the school, including “cheating on the statewide assessment”, students who were graduating even though they were “not eligible to graduate” and teachers who were “not qualified to teach.”

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When Project Baltimore first spoke with Lewis, last year, she said the school was inflating enrollment with students who were not actually attending. It’s a tactic that can be used to increase funding. When Lewis took over at Claremont, she says she found five deceased students on the rolls.

Lewis’s lawsuit claimed North Avenue retaliated against her for whistleblowing. And as a result, she developed a disability that North Avenue did not accommodate. In June of 2018, Lewis was fired. One month later, on July 18, 2018, she filed a lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Fast forward four years and four days later, in July of 2022, her lawsuit went to trial.

When asked if she thought the case should have taken four years to get to trial, Lewis replied, “Absolutely not.”

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“The longer they drag it out, the more it's going to cost you in attorney fees and exorbitant cost in other filings,” Lewis said. “So, financially, it just almost bankrupts you to a point. Many cases from many of my colleagues have been dropped because of it.”

When Lewis lost her job as a principal, she lost the income that came with it. Meanwhile, City Schools has a $1.6 billion budget and a law office with 26 employees. And, likely for that reason, successful lawsuits against Baltimore City Schools are rare. In 2018, 23 suits were filed against the district with Lewis’s being one of them. According to Maryland Court records, just three resulted in a payout.

“It's funny, because many people said to me, ‘This is a David and Goliath situation,” Lewis told Project Baltimore.

Lewis’s trial lasted more than a week. She testified over two days, describing, in part, how the retaliation against her continued after she was fired. She said City Schools gave her bad references, making it difficult to find another job.

The jury ultimately found in favor of Lewis on one count of disability discrimination related to accommodations she requested for a medical condition, which the school system did not provide. As a result, the jury awarded Lewis, $100,000.

“It was very emotional because it's been a long, long time coming,” said Lewis. “I think they could clearly see that my disability was brought on by everything that I've endured.”

The jury did not find in favor of Lewis on several other counts, including whistleblower retaliation.

Jurors were not asked to determine whether her claims about Claremont were true, just whether she faced retaliation for reporting them.

Baltimore City Schools declined an interview. But said in a statement:

“We are aware of the verdict and will respond accordingly to the court's one finding against Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools). Overall, the jury’s other significant findings in favor of City Schools validate a consistent string of crystal-clear rulings that City Schools did not retaliate against or wrongfully terminate Angel Lewis. The jury also rejected Lewis's allegations of financial mismanagement and abuse of funds. Despite attempts by some to try this case via media coverage, the facts were apparent to the jury, and it ruled accordingly. The jury’s findings in favor of City Schools should serve as undisputable evidence that the ‘culture of retaliation’ narrative peddled in media coverage is false.

City Schools has 30 days to appeal.

“It's one win, not a victory. There is more,” Lewis told Project Baltimore. “I think for me, this will be over when kids are vindicated, and they have what they need. When someone reaches out to all of these kids who were pushed through the system who are trying to now figure it out with a diploma that's just a piece of paper. I think that'll be the win.”