Wake school board asks federal judge to dismiss Lassiter lawsuit

The Wake County school board is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from a former principal who claims politics played a role in his suspension and resignation in 2024.

Scott Lassiter was a Republican state Senate candidate that year. His lawsuit claims school officials targeted him for removal from his job to help Democrats win.

Lassiter initially filed suit in July in Wake County Superior Court. The school board had the case moved to federal court last month. The board filed a motion Wednesday asking US District Judge James Dever to dismiss the case.

“With respect to all claims against the Board, Plaintiff has failed to state any claim upon which relief may be granted,” the school board’s lawyers wrote.

Lassiter had served since 2018 as assistant principal at Wake’s Connections Academy, an alternative middle school for students who otherwise who would have faced long-term suspensions from their base school, according to his complaint.

On May 22, 2024, Lassiter and a colleague restrained a student involved in a fight. The student’s adult brother and mother later came to the school and threatened Lassiter. Neither school officials nor law enforcement raised concerns about Lassiter’s actions at the time, according to the complaint.

Problems with school system administrators started in September 2024, according to Lassiter’s suit. He alleged that school officials suspended him and coerced his resignation. The complaint also alleged a leak to the media of a confidential report about the May incident. Wake school officials submitted the report to the state Department of Public Instruction.

“To the extent plaintiff is attempting to base his fraud claim on his vague and unsupported allegation that an unnamed agent of the school system reported the student altercation incident to the media prior to execution of the agreement, this allegation fails to meet the heightened pleading requirements of Rule 9,” Wake school board lawyers wrote. “Plaintiff does not state who made the media report, when it was made, to whom it was made, or what information the report contained.”

“Even if there had been such a disclosure from somewhere within the school system, Plaintiff does not include any particularized allegations that the disclosure was in any way connected to the negotiation of his resignation agreement,” the school board’s court filing continued. “Under this theory, the material fact concealed would apparently be that the school system entered into the agreement having secretly provided a leak to the media prior to the execution of the agreement.”

“Plaintiff includes no particularized allegations to support such a theory,” Wake schools’ lawyers added. “Further, even if such a media report had been made, it is not plausible that Plaintiff would have been unaware of the media report when he signed the resignation and release agreement waiving all claims against the Board.”

By seeking both damages and the cancellation of his resignation agreement at the same time, Lassiter is seeking “inconsistent remedies” that should cause his case to be dismissed, the school board argued.

The school board challenged Lassiter’s argument about a First Amendment violation.

“Plaintiff alleges that the Defendant engaged in First Amendment retaliation through his suspension and the required misconduct report made to DPI,” Wake’s lawyers wrote.

“Plaintiff cannot establish that his political activity was the ‘but-for’ cause of the misconduct report for multiple reasons, the most obvious of which is that, as Plaintiff concedes, the report was required by law,” the court filing explained. “Notably, school officials could have been subject to a felony charge for not making a required report.”

“Taking required action to avoid criminal liability is an ‘obvious alternate explanation’ for defendant’s conduct in making the misconduct report to DPI, eliminating the plausibility of Plaintiff’s claim,” Wake school board lawyers added.

“Plaintiff has also failed to allege any facts supporting his conclusory allegations of retaliatory intent by Defendant,” the court filing explained. “Plaintiff alleges generically that ‘Defendant and its agents [were] opposed to his view and party affiliation’ but Plaintiff does not specify which agents he is referring to and includes no factual support for his claim that some unspecified actors within the school system were fueled by retaliatory animus.”

Lassiter was the Republican state Senate candidate in District 13 in 2024. He lost that election to incumbent Democratic Sen. Lisa Grafstein.

“For three and a half months after the May 22, 2024 incident, Plaintiff heard nothing from Defendant or its agents until on or about September 5, 2024 when he received a letter from Anthony Muttillo, Assistant Superintendent Human Resources, advising him that he was being immediately suspended,” the lawsuit alleged. “The letter also stated that Muttillo believed that ‘cause may exist for [his] dismissal’ although conceding that additional investigation into the facts was necessary.”

“In 2024 Lassiter was the Republican nominee for North Carolina State Senate in a hotly contested, close political race against the Democrat nominee endorsed and funded by the North Carolina Association of Educators (‘NCAE’), the liberal teachers union in the State,” wrote William “Woody” Webb, Lassiter’s lawyer. “The Democrat party and in particular the NCAE had a vested interest in the success of Plaintiff’s opponent in order to deprive Republicans from having a ‘super majority’ in the State Senate.”

“Upon information and belief, having an experienced, knowledgeable school administrator with Plaintiff’s views and positions on teacher’s and student’s performance and, especially, school safety issues, about which he avidly advocated to those in and out of the school system, was anathema to Democrats and the NCAE,” Webb wrote.

Around the time of Muttillo’s letter, Lassister “was contacted by Kendra Hill (‘Hill’), Employee Relations Director for Defendant and a political operative of the Democrat party, who warned Plaintiff that he should take the weekend and consider resigning and if he did resign, the matter would be all over or if he did not resign, he would face a public termination recommendation to the Board,” according to the lawsuit.

“Upon information and belief, the warning from Hill to resign was in reaction to Plaintiff’s positive polling numbers in his campaign for the State Senate,” Webb wrote. “The alleged misconduct on the part of Plaintiff was leaked to the media about the time of the DPI report in an effort to make Plaintiff look bad.”

The complaint offered further details about reporting of the May 2024 incident to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

“To avoid intense media attention and scrutiny flowing from any alleged misconduct report, Plaintiff agreed to enter into a Confidential Personnel Agreement (‘CPA’), executed on October 6, 2024, by which he voluntarily resigned from his employment with the Wake County Public School System,” Webb wrote. “Defendant knew that the motivating reasons for Plaintiff entering into the CPA was to fully and completely resolve the alleged misconduct matter on a confidential basis, to halt media damage to his potential campaign and to preserve and protect his good name and reputation as well as future employment opportunities in education.”

“Defendant also knew that if it revealed to Plaintiff its intention to report the student altercation situation to the Department of Public Instruction (‘DPI’) for further investigation, Plaintiff would not agree to negotiate or enter into the CPA,” Webb added. “Thus, it failed to disclose to Plaintiff its intention to make a misconduct report about him to the DPI with the goal of fraudulently coercing Plaintiff into an agreement (the CPA) adverse to his interests.”

“To his surprise,” according to the complaint, Lassiter learned that Wake school employees “reported the entire student altercation matter both to the media and, of course, to the DPI in a document entitled ‘Licensed Educator Misconduct Reporting Form’ signed on November 14, 2024, by Jerry Griffith, Senior Administrator for Employee Relations.”

State law required the DPI report within five days of Muttillo’s letter, but it “was delayed for political reasons to coerce Plaintiff to resign in an effort to harm his race for the State Senate,” the lawsuit alleged. “In addition, in similar situations no report was made to the DPI and, thus, Plaintiff had no way of knowing such a report would be made in his case — or used as a political cudgel.”

Lassiter assigned “great significance” to the impact of his school safety complaints.

“Plaintiff both during and before his time at Connections Academy documented extensive school safety issues and made them available to Wake County School officials regarding both the increasing incidences of dangerous student behavior but also the absence of sufficient safety measures at the schools to address persistent violence and safety hazards involving acknowledged troubled students,” according to the complaint. “In fact, for years Lassiter vigorously advocated for School Resource Officers, metal detectors and other security support devices. Plaintiff’s multiple complaints and suggested remedies about the ongoing threats to public health and safety fell on deaf ears and blind eyes notwithstanding Defendant’s full knowledge of the merits of Lassiter’s concerns, which were fully documented and reported.”

“Plaintiff consistently and passionately asserted that some Wake County Public Schools were becoming ‘dumping grounds’ for the area’s unmotivated, troubled and violent children with no real strategy to improve their lot,” the lawsuit continued. “Moreover, his safety concerns for the schools, teachers, and students were a central plank in his political campaign for the State Senate much to the chagrin of the NCAE and the Democrat party.”

The suit alleged fraudulent inducement to enter into the confidential personnel agreement and First Amendment retaliation. He asked to have the agreement thrown out and to return to his job with back pay and benefits, along with damages.

Lassiter had attracted publicity with a 2023 lawsuit alleging that then-House Speaker Tim Moore had broken up Lassiter’s first marriage.