Baseball Coach sues PAISD

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Former Memorial baseball coach sues PAISD for discrimination

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Two of the people he had issue with are no longer at Memorial High School, but former Memorial baseball coach Triny Rivera is going ahead with his lawsuit against the Port Arthur school district.

Rivera, who is Hispanic, says in legal papers filed on his behalf this past November "an atmosphere of hostility and discrimination against Hispanics currently exists at the PAISD."

A 2005 report by the PAISD provided to The News by a school board member shows only 7 percent of the PAISD's 1,277 employees are Hispanic. Eight percent of the PAISD employees at Memorial High (12 of 155) are Hispanic and only four of those are teachers of counselors.

According to the Texas Education Agency's Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) report for 2004-2005, 62 percent of Memorial High's students were black, 23 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian and 6 percent white.

Court documents on Rivera's suit were made available to The News by attorney David Bernsen. He is a former state senator and former Lamar University baseball teammate of Rivera, who is representing the coach.

They show Rivera's alleged mistreatment by principal Marilyn Baptiste caused Rivera to file a charge of discrimination against the district with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Rights Division of the Texas Workforce Commission more than a year ago.

Since then, the state certified math teacher says he has been fired as baseball coach by former athletic director Dean Colbert and demoted by Baptiste to be a hall monitor, all in an attempt to convince him to quit.

As a result, Rivera has filed a retaliation charge with the EEOC and, this past November, a lawsuit against the district.

Bernsen filed another retaliation lawsuit against the PAISD last week, this one on behalf of longtime Port Arthur teacher Paula Mathews.

It alleges the district is in breach of contract after settling an EEOC discrimination charge last spring that was brought by Mathews, a certified social studies teacher and coach. The settlement included an undisclosed cash payment from the district to Mathews and a promise to consider her for jobs in the district.

The suit charges that since last spring, PAISD superintendent Mackey has "intentionally and willfully" refused to consider hiring the teacher and has "instructed, or made known to" the principals of PAISD schools not to hire Mathews.

Asked to comment on Rivera's charges, Baptiste said, “There's been no discrimination against Hispanics or whites.â€

Regarding Rivera's job changes at Memorial, she said, “He has changed assignments like other people in the district have also changed assignments, but it was never to demote him. He's still a teacher on the Memorial campus - he's not a hall monitor - and he's receiving the same (teaching) salary.

“As far as him losing his job as coach, I don't have anything to do with that.â€

Late Wednesday afternoon, Mackey responded to a Monday request for comment on the Rivera lawsuit with a faxed note instructing the questioner to speak with PAISD attorney James Black. Mackey's secretary, Georgia Antoine, who sent the fax, said Mackey would be out of his office until next Tuesday.

The News only learned of Mathews' lawsuit Tuesday. Black did not return a phone message left Wednesday afternoon.

Colbert said he was unaware of the Rivera lawsuit when asked about it in late December.

Richard Morris, the Houston attorney who filed PAISD's response to Rivera's lawsuit, did not return a request for comment left by The News Monday.

PAISD, in its Dec. 7 response, issued a general denial to "each and every allegation contained in (Rivera's) original petition."

Colbert resigned at Memorial last week and was hired Tuesday by the Humble school district.

Mackey recently reassigned Baptiste to the position of director of elementary education. However, she will remain in charge at Memorial until a replacement as principal can be hired, Mackey said.

Rivera earned $60,332 in the 2003-04 school year but is now being paid an annual salary of $52,303, according to figures provided by the PAISD in answer to a Public Information Act request by The News.

He is suing for actual damages "consisting of lost wages and benefits" in the past and future; mental anguish in the past and future, physical illness in the past; and attorney's fees and court costs, as well as punitive damages, the lawsuit says.

The suit charges the PAISD "through and at the intentional direction of Mackey, Baptiste and Colbert and other unnamed persons, engaged in retaliation against (Rivera) by demoting, suspending, constructively firing and firing (Rivera)" as a result of Rivera filing a discrimination grievance.

Bernsen said, "He started complaining about problems with baseball and Hispanics on the campus. Then he ran into problems with the principal and superintendent, then, as a consequence of that, with Colbert.

"They started taking issue with his coaching, trying to force him out. They thought if they could force him out of coaching, they could force him out of the school district.

"They just keep heaping the retaliation and the humiliation on him, which is absolutely ridiculous. I think our case will show he's the only certified bilingual math teacher at the high school. I don't think there are too many of those floating around.

"Plus, he's a good baseball coach, too."

In an interview with The News last summer, Colbert denied reports that he fired Rivera, saying the coach resigned. Rivera, before referring further questions to his lawyer, asserted to The News in December that Colbert, indeed, had fired him as baseball coach.

"I filed a grievance one week and got fired the next," he said. "When Colbert said I resigned, that's very confusing to me. I never resigned.

"I wanted this class (of baseball players) coming up to have a better chance than the others. I had some kids play two years for me."

The case was filed in the 58th District Court of Jefferson County. It has not been placed on the docket yet, but a clerk said if it were to go to trial, the earliest possible court date would be about a year from now.

Rivera is a native of Wharton who was an assistant baseball coach at Thomas Jefferson in 1974-75 and head coach at McNeese State from 1981 to 1986. He returned to Memorial in the summer of 2003 and coached the Titan baseball team in the 2004 and 2005 spring seasons.

He faced discontent on the job from the start.

He turned in his resignation in the fall of 2003, just months after he started work at Memorial, but tore up that letter after a meeting with Mackey.

Rivera had been upset that his initial teaching assignment was at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, which prevented him from working with his players in the off-season during the high school athletic period. He was also upset that he lacked sufficient office space or a telephone.

The district found Rivera a teaching job at Memorial High.

The following spring, a group of baseball parents was prepared to protest at a school board meeting that the district still wasn't giving Rivera the necessary support. He still didn't have a school phone, there were equipment shortages, his coaching staff was shy two men and Baptiste was having him teach six math classes a day, which left him little time to prepare for practices or games.

But Mackey got off a pre-emptive strike. The morning before a parent was set to detail these shortcomings to the school board, he invited the parent to a meeting, at which Baptiste, Colbert, Rivera and athletic coordinator Lauri Hampshire were also present.

As a result of the meeting, Rivera finally got a phone installed in his office, one basketball coach and one football coach were assigned to help him the final month of the season, and the coach won a promise to cut his teaching schedule to four math classes a day.

In his September 2004 discrimination charge to the EEOC, Rivera alleged that since becoming Memorial's principal in November 2003, Baptiste "has harassed and attempted to intimidate the Hispanic and White staff and treating (sic) the Black staff more favorably."

He charged that Baptiste tried to humiliate him at a staff function in May 2004. Rivera also said in August of that same year Baptiste removed him from teaching math to supervise in-school supervision. He said his replacement was a black coach who was not certified to teach math.

The November 2005 lawsuit says that Rivera "would show unto the court that although there is an increasing number of Hispanic students within PAISD, there is a continuing and intentional culture to refuse to seek, hire and retain Hispanic teachers and administrators within PAISD."

[AHUDDLESTON]

IF YOU CHECK THE PANEWS ARCHIVES, I BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL FIND THAT A BLACK, FEMALE PRINCIPAL WAS ACCUSED OF SAYING THAT THE "MEXICANS" COULD GO BACK TO MEXICO IF THEY WANTED TO CELEBRATE CINCO DE MAYO. ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO.

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:shock: :shock: I didn't see that!

[PNG Proud]

PAISD's problem just keep on mounting. Kinda makes ya wonder how good of an idea this consolidation thing was.

[Guest etbu]

Man seems like to much drama. Before they did all of this were they that good at football?

[Mr. Buddy Garrity]

Man seems like to much drama. Before they did all of this were they that good at football?

Yes. Lincoln and TJ we're in the playoffs alot before they combined all the talent together.