RALEIGH, N.C. (Legal Newsline) - A Charlotte, N.C. private school was within its rights to expel the children of parents who accused the school of advancing “woke” ideology and pursuing diversity at the expense of academic performance, a North Carolina appeals court ruled.
Asserting the constitutional right of contract, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by Doug and Nicole Turpin over the 2021 expulsion of their two children from Charlotte Latin School.
The Turpins sued the $30,000-a-year school after Charlotte Latin terminated their enrollment contract for engaging in an escalating war of words over what they considered to be a swing to progressive politics and teachers “pushing a very left wing progressive viewpoint.” Their claims included fraud, slander, unfair trade practices and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The dispute began in 2020, when after the death of George Floyd the Turpins and other parents became concerned teachers and administrators were pushing the school in a political direction. In June 2020 Head of School Charles Baldecchi sent out a letter about a high school prank he participated in that “was not racially motivated” but “in today’s lens,” was “horrific.”
The concerned parents formed a group called “Refocus Latin” and requested a meeting with the board of directors, which they held in August 2021. The chairman of the board assured parents they would not be retaliated against.
The parents brought a Powerpoint presentation to the meeting which Baldecchi later described to faculty as “just awful,” “very hurtful” and “one reads it and cringes.” He also said Refocus Latin was pursuing a “lost cause” and their presentation was “an attack on our community with the intention of ripping its fabric apart.”
In September 2021 the Turpins emailed the head of the Charlotte Latin middle school about their child’s sixth grade Humanities class, which they felt had been infected with “indoctrination on progressive ideology.”
After a meeting with Baldecchi, the head of the middle school and Doug Turpin, Baldecchi said the Refocus Latin parents believed the school was accepting students because of their skin color who were “not up to the merit of the school.” Baldecchi then terminated the Turpin children’s enrollment contracts and required them to leave school.
A few days later, the Latin Trustees sent an email to parents, faculty and staff stating the board rejected any suggestion the school was admitting less qualified students because of their race. The Turpins sued in April 2022, claiming fraud, deceptive trade practices, emotional distress, breach of contract and slander. The school moved to dismiss the case and in October 2022, Mecklenburg County Judge dismissed eight of the nine claims.
The plaintiffs withdrew the ninth claim and then appealed, but the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of their claims in a Jan. 2 decision by Judge Carolyn Thompson.
The contract states parents agree to “uphold the Parent-School Partnership” and students can be dismissed if parents “make such a relationship impossible or seriously interfere with the school’s mission.” The plaintiffs argued they hadn’t made anything “impossible” but the appeals court disagreed.
“The animosity between plaintiffs and defendants can be observed in just the second paragraph of plaintiffs’ complaint,” the court said, where the plaintiffs referred to “cancel culture” and said Baldecchi expelled their children as retaliation for their complaints about “Latin’s recent change in curriculum and culture and its focus on a political agenda.” The parents had a contractual right to communicate with school officials about their concerns, the appeals court said, and they exercised it.
“What the Parent-School Partnership did not provide for was for plaintiffs to continuously assail the culture and curriculum of the school, with which they no longer agreed,” the court said.
The court also dismissed the claim a school official made a false representation when he told the parents “there will be no blowback, I assure you” against the children. The appeals court agreed with the trial judge that “blowback” meant retaliation by a teacher against the students, not their expulsion because the school canceled a contract with the parents.
The negligent infliction of emotional distress claim failed for the simple reason that Baldecchi “did not negligently terminate the enrollment contracts, he did so intentionally,” the appeals court ruled. And the slander claim failed because the school accurately characterized the “gist or sting” of Refocus Latin’s claim the admissions committee was “weighting diversity over academic Excellence.”