Parents are suing School District 49 for alleged discrimination and retaliation toward them and their son.

In the lawsuit filed Nov. 26, Ryan Brown and Margaret Gay allege that their son was singled out by a teacher because of he and another student’s race while they attended Remington Elementary School in 2023.

Following efforts to remove his son from the class, they allege that their family was met with increasingly coordinated efforts to limit their ability to communicate with district personnel.

Brown believes that this was done in direct response to their meetings and follow-ups with his son’s school principal and the district’s superintendent.

“It would have never come to this, had they just said, ‘We will move him from this class. We apologize (for) what happened.’ That would have been it,” Brown said. “But then we doubled, tripled and quadrupled down and then I turned into the bad guy for advocating for my son.”

On May 4, 2023, Brown’s son greeted one of his friends, who is Black like him, by asking “What’s up brah [sic]?” Sheri Baron, the students’ teacher who is White, verbally disapproved of the exchange, calling it “gang talk,” according to court documents.

When he told his parents about the incident after school, both met with school Principal Cassie MacArthur and requested that he be removed from the class for the rest of the year.

The lawsuit alleges that MacArthur verbally agreed to remove Brown and Gay’s son from the class, before following up with an email admitting that the teacher’s response was inappropriate but that he would remain in the class.

The email allegedly stated that all future meetings with any staff member of Remington Elementary would have to be done via phone and that they could not come to the school to speak with MacArthur without an appointment.

Brown told The Gazette that the email was sent shortly before the start of the school day while he was dropping off his son. He said when he entered the principal’s office that morning to confirm that the changes had been made, he was greeted with a printed copy of the email by the principal who was accompanied by two armed security officers.

“I know that was just for intimidation purposes in hopes that, ‘Hey, if you get out of order … I’ll have you arrested,” he said. “And that’s just for embarrassment purposes. That’s all it was. At least, that’s how I take it.”

The lawsuit points to this as an example of racism and retaliation since this condition was unique to Brown’s family.

The parents then pulled their son from the school and homeschooled him for the remainder of the school year.

After submitting a stakeholder grievance appeal to D-49 Superintendent Peter Hilts, Hilts then began an investigation into his Brown’s complaints. In his emailed response to Brown obtained by The Gazette, Hilts said that the responses taken were in line with their existing policies and that Brown and Gay’s behavior toward MacArthur was a “disrespectful interaction” that was “out of bounds.”

Brown said Gay was “loud” during their meeting, but not threatening or vulgar and that he believed MacArthur was embarrassed by the discussion.

Hilts also said that Baron’s comments were a “microaggression” that revealed an “implicit bias” and served as “an opportunity for personal improvement and an imperative for more effective organizational training” that was already implemented.

In addition to his son’s removal from the class, Brown sought resolutions that included a suspension of Baron and a “wholesale regime change” at Remington if similar cases were to continue at the school. He said that no significant corrective action ever happened.

“I don’t think there was any type of discipline, there was not even a slap on the wrist,” Brown said.

The lawsuit goes on to allege that, in the following months, efforts were made across the district to limit Brown’s interactions with district staff and faculty.

Specifically, on Feb. 7, 2024, all staff members of the Horizon Middle School staff were allegedly instructed to no longer communicate with Brown.

Brown’s son currently participates in extracurricular activities at the school while he is homeschooled.

In an email to D-49 leadership obtained by The Gazette, Hilts describes Brown as “an individual who consistently objects to our decisions and levels of service” and instructs them not to take calls or receive any other type of communication from him without seeking approval from him and consultation with the district’s attorney Brad Miller.

The reason given in the message is “because there are legal implications to all communications with” Brown.

The lawsuit also references a complaint filed by Brown and Gay with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which determined that they had probable cause for their claims of discrimination.

“The racism that Ryan Brown, Margaret Gay, and their son endured is intolerable,” attorney Andy McNulty said in a Tuesday press release.

“It harkens back to the type of discrimination that Black students regularly endured during the Jim Crow era in this country and is becoming all too common as school districts across the country stop taking racism seriously and implement bans on books that even acknowledge that racism exists.”

Brown was previously involved in a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Colorado Springs and the Colorado Springs Police Department in 2017 for racial profiling. The two sides ultimately reached a settlement for $212,000.

D-49 spokesperson David Nancarrow provided the following statement to The Gazette:

“District 49 is gratified that the Colorado Civil Rights Division considered these claims carefully and ultimately declined to set them for a hearing. Accordingly, the Division dismissed Mr. Brown’s case. We now look forward to our day in court to defend our district and our colleagues from these baseless and sensationalized accusations.”