STATENVILLE, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Georgia school board is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a discrimination suit brought by Dr. Lana Foster, a teacher who says the Echols County school district demoted, mistreated and ultimately fired her because she is Black.

A federal judge and the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals have already ruled against board members and superintendents, denying their request for qualified immunity. The Supreme Court is now deciding if it will hear the case.

Among the examples Foster cites in her case: court records show two board members involved in the decision to fire her exchanged texts using racial slurs, including the N-word, in casual text messages. The texts were not directed at Foster and did not reference her by name, but surfaced during her lawsuit as evidence of what Foster called blatant racism by board members.

One message from a board member in 2016 said, “We want staff dressed in old south theme mammies and butlers,” in reference to an event, according to court records. A 2017 message asked about “Prince Harry marrying an [N-word].” The lawsuit also accused a board vice chair of sending a message describing “old black women in Tobacco patch” talking about “girls feeding their babies animal milk instead of breast feeding,” and stating “that was why the black children acted so bad – with animal Milk they acted like animals.”

Foster said, as of today, there are no Black teachers working in the Echols County school district. She was the district’s last.

Degrees and demotions

Foster was among the first Black students to attend Echols County’s formerly all-white school after the county integrated in 1970.

“We did not ride to school together,” Foster said. ”My daddy drove the school bus, and he drove the Black kids.” Foster said, remembering when she and the other Black students first entered what had been the all-white school.

“With me being as young and naive, I really didn’t know that there was a difference,” Foster said.

Foster’s mother also moved to the new school as one of its first Black teachers.

Foster later graduated from Echols County High School and earned seven degrees, including a master’s and a doctorate. Rather than taking her knowledge far away from this rural Georgia county on the Florida border, Foster decided to give back by educating the next generation.

“I didn’t see people like me in that school,” other than the students, Foster said. “I knew they needed somebody that they could relate to.”

Foster returned to teach in the district in the 1980s as one of its first Black teachers, where yearbooks reviewed by Atlanta News First Investigates show she was named Teacher of the Year and served as sponsor of the Junior Beta Club, an honors society, including in a statewide position.

Over the next three and a half decades, Foster said a series of new superintendents and administrations demoted her.

“They were ruining my name, and I couldn’t have my name ruined,” Foster said.

In 2000, Foster’s husband ran for a seat on the school board, seeking to become its first Black member. He lost the election. A mock grave later appeared at the town’s main intersection reading “here lies Foster the imposter,” with a watermelon and a painted black face on the mound of dirt, according to Foster and photos of the display.

No one ever claimed credit for the mock grave or its racist imagery.

Things didn’t get any better at school, according to Foster.

One of Foster’s lawsuits alleged her father was replaced as lead custodian “by a younger, dramatically less-qualified white man.” The same lawsuit alleged Foster’s mother was fired in 2007 “and escorted off the campus,” and the following year, her daughter’s teaching contract was not renewed despite a recent master’s degree.

That 2009 lawsuit ended in a settlement in which the district agreed to reinstate Foster’s position as Beta Club sponsor. The U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office separately investigated Foster’s complaints and reached a resolution agreement in which the district agreed to “develop a recruitment plan for increasing the number of qualified black applicants.”

Foster said she was later moved out of the regular classroom to supervise students’ in-school suspension. In 2018, the year after she earned her doctorate, Foster said she received a note in her school mailbox stating her last day would be May 30 and that she would not receive a contract for the following year.

“They demoted my daddy. They fired my mom. They got rid of my daughter. And then it was me,” Foster said.

The district claimed Foster misappropriated funds for a Beta club trip for a family vacation. Foster was cleared by both the Georgia Attorney General and the Professional Standards Commission of those allegations.

Second lawsuit and $137,000 settlement

After the text messages surfaced in litigation, the school board settled again, agreeing to pay Foster $137,000 and to “develop a recruitment plan for increasing the number of qualified black applicants,” according to court records.

Foster said that despite the agreement, hiring in the district did not change. She said photos of newly hired teachers she reviewed showed no Black candidates, and that no Black teachers currently work in the district.

Second lawsuit and the appeals

Foster sued the district again in 2020, alleging it failed to uphold the settlement agreement because of “racial animus.” This time, the school board did not settle. Board members and two superintendents instead claimed qualified immunity. A federal judge denied that claim, and the board appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Attorney Bennett Bryan, representing the board members and superintendents, told the appeals court, “The district court improperly denied qualified immunity to my clients.”

One judge on the panel responded: “It just seems a little ridiculous to suggest that the board here and the superintendent here could, with impunity, go ahead and violate the settlement agreement and refuse to hire Black people, and retaliate against someone because she was Black, and do all of these things because they did not want Black people working in the school district. And that somehow that was okay because they didn’t know that they couldn’t do that.”

The 11th Circuit denied qualified immunity, writing that “all reasonable government officials would know they cannot refuse to follow a contract because of the contracting party’s race.” The court cited a federal law passed the year after the Civil War ended.

The case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which is considering whether to hear it. If the justices decline, or if Foster wins, the case can proceed to trial.

Atlanta News First Investigates reached out to the current and former Echols County school board members, the superintendent and their attorneys multiple times over a six-month period for comment and for confirmation of the district’s current racial makeup. None replied.

Foster said she continues to pursue the case. “I’m being a warrior for everybody that has ever been mistreated,” she said. “It’s so that everybody would be given a chance.”

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