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  Crenshaw Sues White BOE Members: Claims Racism web posted September 13, 2012 EDGEFIELD – Former Edgefield County School Superintendent Mary Rice-Crenshaw has filed a lawsuit against the School District and only the white board members for what she claims was a racist conspiracy to take over the school board for the sole purpose of firing her because she is black. In an unusual but bold move, the District and BOE Chairman Brad Covar fired back when asked about the suit. In response to the lawsuit, current Superintendent of Education Greg W. Anderson said in a prepared statement, "I am surprised that Dr. Crenshaw would do such a thing. The school board fully complied with her contract and has not discriminated against her in any way." Dr. Crenshaw was released from her contract by a majority vote of the board in October of 2011. Because she was being released "without cause", the school district continued to pay her for the remainder of the school year in accordance with the terms and conditions of her contract. Anderson commented, "It is interesting that Dr. Crenshaw waited until she received all of her salary that was due to her under the provisions of her contract before she instituted this lawsuit." In the 18-page filing Crenshaw claims that she was hired by a black majority on the school board and that now Chairman Brad Covar then conspired to entice whites to run and get elected to the School Board for the sole purpose of firing her because she was black. The two seats overtaken in the 2010 election was determined by voters in districts that were drawn to promote a minority candidate winning. The suit also states that Covar joined a "hate group" of three individuals who put up a website called FireDrCrenshaw.com seeking her ouster. Oddly enough, Crenshaw is also suing the three owners of the site, but did not include Covar. If he "joined" the group, he would have been named in that lawsuit but wasn't. School Board Chairman Brad Covar added, "This is unbelievable. The school board tried to treat Dr. Crenshaw with respect and we have fully complied with the terms of her contract. Out of respect for her, the board chose to release her without cause so that we would not have to get into what we believed to be her shortcomings. I hope the public can understand why I am personally upset because we went out of our way to treat Dr. Crenshaw with respect and she in turn has made many allegations which are totally false. We are left with no choice now but to state these shortcomings publicly. I can assure you that we will not have a shortage of witnesses". Covar further noted that the names of some of the board members are incorrect in the lawsuit. Mr. Anderson concluded "I want to reassure the public that we will not lose our focus because of this lawsuit. We are off to the best start of school opening in many years. We have had record numbers to attend open house, PTO meetings and Grandparent's Day. We will not lose our momentum or the positive energy that has been generated by our employees. The education of every child in our district is our primary concern". The suit seeks over a quarter million dollars in actual damages and additional damages due to the racism Crenshaw claims was perpetrated against her. She is represented by attorney Donald Gist from Columbia. The case number is 2012-CP-1900235 © Copyright 2012 All material is property of
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