Court Rejects $5M Lawsuit Over Teacher's Saying High School Student Benefited from "White Privilege"

From Curtis v. Hawaii Mission Academy, decided Friday by the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals (Judges Keith Hiraoka, Sonja McCullen, and Kimberly Guidry), I think correctly:

The underlying facts of this case are largely undisputed. Jean-Marcel Clouzet (Mr. Clouzet) taught Bible Studies at Hawaiian Mission Academy, a parochial school affiliated with the Hawai’i Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists (the Conference). In February 2022, Mr. Clouzet invited his wife (Mrs. Clouzet) to speak to the Bible Studies class about marriage and relationships.

During the discussion, a student asked a question related to white privilege. According to Kallie’s deposition, Mrs. Clouzet stated she herself benefited from white privilege and pointed Kallie out, saying she had it too. Kallie identifies as non-white/Hispanic. {Kallie was eighteen years old at the time of the incident.}

The next day, Kallie’s Father emailed the principal of Hawaiian Mission Academy, Joe Lee (Principal Lee), expressing that he found the incident “to be beyond offensive.” He reminded Principal Lee they were assured “that those type of race views had no place at” Hawaiian Mission Academy. Kallie’s Father stated that “nothing short of [Mr. Clouzet's] near immediate resignation or termination from [Hawaiian Mission Academy] would be a satisfactory resolution.”

By February 17, 2022, eight days after the incident, Mr. Clouzet had been fired…. The Curtis Family brought a civil action seeking in excess of $5,778,000.00 in damages arising from the incident….

The court rejected plaintiffs’ negligence claim:

The Curtis Family relies on the following: Mrs. Clouzet “was an unauthorized guest speaker, that Principal Lee was unaware that she was in [Mr. Clouzet's] classroom, that [Mr. and Mrs. Clouzet] singled out Kallie based on the color of her skin, and that [Mr. Clouzet], per his own confession, ‘was not paying attention’ to what [Mrs. Clouzet] was saying.” …

Defendants argued that Kallie’s own testimony showed Mr. Clouzet did not verbally berate, assault, or harass Kallie. Defendants also argued that Mrs. Clouzet’s comments were not intended to be malicious, and the topic of white privilege came from a student question.

Defendants cited persuasive authority that such statements, without more, are not actionable under a negligent failure to protect claim in an educational setting….

The court also rejected plaintiffs’ intentional infliction of emotional distress claim:

[T]he Curtis Family argues … that Mrs. Clouzet’s statement that Kallie benefited from white privilege was … outrageous [because], given Kallie’s young age, Mrs. Clouzet’s position of power as a guest speaker, the public nature and classroom setting of her statement, as well as its racial quality, the issue should have been put to a jury.

A successful IIED claim requires proof that the conduct (1) was intentional or reckless, (2) was outrageous, and (3) caused (4) “extreme emotional distress to another.” “The term ‘outrageous’ has been construed to mean without just cause or excuse and beyond all bounds of decency.” The Hawai’i Supreme Court has further explained that “[t]here is ‘no clear definition of the prohibited outrageous conduct,’ and the correct inquiry is simply whether ‘an average member of the community’ would exclaim, ‘Outrageous!’”

Courts have held that, “although ‘[r]acial discrimination can amount to extreme or outrageous conduct,’ that is typically only the case where there is a ‘pattern of harassment,’ as opposed to ‘a few isolated incidents.’ …” … Stating Kallie benefited from white privilege was not outrageous….

And the court rejected plaintiffs’ defamation claim:

[T]he Curtis Family argues the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment “because telling a class full of ‘non-white looking’ teenagers that the one ‘white looking’ girl has a privilege over the rest of them could very well create resentment against the poor girl, thereby ‘harming her reputation’ and ‘lowering her in the estimation’ of her classmates.”

Although the Curtis Family claimed the white privilege statement was defamatory in their First Amended Complaint, they abandoned that claim during …. During [a] hearing, counsel for the Curtis Family stated:

• “[H]ow both Court and the counsel are setting each other up for this straw man’s argument as if that we are claiming that the white privilege was the defamatory comment. We didn’t.”
• “I specifically said it’s the comment where [Mr. Clouzet] called Kallie white is defamatory.”
• “Why are we engaging in straw man arguments, oh, counsel, do you think white privilege is defamatory? Oh, I don’t think so, Judge. We never claimed that.”
• “[W]hy are we focusing on white privilege?”
• “We never said anything about white privilege. That was regarding other issues. Here defamatory comment — I’m going to make the record clear and then you can go ahead and decide whatever you’re going to decide. Our defamatory comments are based on the fact that [Mr. Clouzet] specifically said she’s white when she wasn’t … and, two, that he lied about their church attendance. That’s it.”

{The Curtis Family makes no argument on appeal that the statement that Kallie was “white” or Mr. Clouzet’s statements regarding the Curtis Family’s church attendance were defamatory and therefore waive any such argument.}

Mark G. Valencia and James W. Rooney (Case Lombardi) represent defendants.

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