GhLinks Media
A black woman from Utah named Joscelin Thomas was hired to investigate racial harassment after a 10-year-old student took her own life is in the news after she also claimed she too was discriminated against.
Joscelin Thomas was a former coordinator in the Davis School District’s equal opportunity office.
She was part of a wave of new hires in 2022 after black student Izzy Tichenor killed herself due to relentless racist bullying from classmates.
Joscelin Thomas allegations
Joscelin alleges in a federal lawsuit that district staff treated her “as if she were stupid,” accused her of having a substandard work ethic and denied her training and mentorship opportunities that were offered to her white colleagues.
“From the beginning of her employment, Dr. Thomas was treated differently than her lighter-skinned and non-Black coworkers and was subject to a hostile work environment,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit names the school district, assistant superintendent Fidel Montero, HR director Suzi Jensen, and a third-party consultant, Heidi Alder, as defendants.
Thomas was among those tasked with investigating the anonymous reports, hired as a district coordinator with a team of more junior coordinators.
However, she was only given one subordinate while the other two district coordinators got two each, and was still handed a bigger workload.
She claimed they ‘treated her as a subordinate, rather than a colleague’ and regularly demanded she do grunt work for them.
About a month into her employment, a colleague handed her a pile of garbage and ordered her to clean up the trash during what was supposed to be an opportunity for Thomas to network with other administrators, the complaint alleged.
The colleague became ‘furious’ when Thomas refused, the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit details how the same colleague interrupted a meeting with their boss to yell at her for something she didn’t do.
Their boss, the director, had them attend mediation where the colleague ‘acknowledged that she bossed Dr Thomas around when it was not her place to do so’, the lawsuit explained.
The colleague also allegedly ‘admitted to having a grudge against Dr Thomas, because she felt Dr Thomas did not have the same ‘work ethic’.’
However, very little changed as a result of the medication, and Thomas’ colleagues continued to ‘blame her for things that were not her fault’.
