Teachers’ advocate claims race and gender discrimination

A former lobbyist with a Georgia teachers’ advocacy group has filed a federal lawsuit, claiming she didn’t get a promotion because of her gender and race.

Tracey-Ann Nelson, who is black, alleges in U.S. District Court in Atlanta that she was discriminated against this year when the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) chose a white male instead of her as executive director.

Nelson alleges a simmering internal dispute with GAE leaders had a public effect, disrupting a rally she was staging against legislation that would let the state take over troubled schools. The Opportunity School District bill narrowly passed this spring and will go to voters next year as a constitutional amendment.

“Ms. Nelson’s efforts to organize opposition to the bill were directly undermined and certain Republican legislators who had previously agreed to vote against the bill changed their minds,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in March then amended in May. It says the dispute revealed GAE’s role in the rally, which Nelson was trying to downplay, and denied students, parents and teachers who’d traveled to Atlanta a chance to publicly state their opposition.

The lawsuit says GAE president Sid Chapman and the new executive director, Chris Baumann, met with Georgia House of Representatives minority leader Stacey Abrams to ask about Nelson’s performance at the Capitol; Abrams, finding the encounter “unusual,” promptly notified Nelson.

GAE General Counsel Mike McGonigle said Monday that the group had no immediate response to the lawsuit’s specific claims, but he denied the organization discriminated against Nelson. On Tuesday, he added that Nelson’s application for executive director was denied by a racially diverse board of men and women and said GAE would “vigorously” defend against her suit.