Jury awards ex-vice principal $672K in retaliation suit against district

A jury has ordered Seattle Public Schools to pay $672,646 to a former Ballard High vice principal who said she was retaliated against after she complained her principal was sexually harassing her.

Glenda Williams filed suit in King County Superior Court in 2007, saying she was on track to become a principal in 2003 before she accused Method Odoemene, then Ballard's principal, of subjecting her to verbal sexual harassment. Her career, she said, has gone downhill ever since.

The verdict is "a vindication," Williams said Thursday, "an opportunity to restore my name."

"It was clear that my career was being derailed by something that was not my fault," she said.

Seattle Public Schools is reviewing its options and may appeal, said spokesman David Tucker.

In court papers, lawyers representing the district argued that the district responded quickly to Williams' report about Odoemene, reprimanding him for "inappropriate behavior" about a week after she complained to an administrator.

Williams is still employed by Seattle Public Schools but has been demoted to a teaching position. She has yet to be assigned to a school this year and has been at home.

Her last assignment was in the library at Nathan Hale High School, where she said she sat for months with no duties.

It was August 2003 when Williams alleged that Odoemene had professed love for her and didn't stop even after she clearly told him she wasn't interested and threatened to tell district officials.

According to court papers, she said he once invited her to go to Hawaii with him.

After the reprimand, Odoemene stayed in his post, and Williams was reassigned to Rainier Beach High.

Once the case became public, it led to calls by Ballard parents and teachers to replace Odoemene. They complained about his leadership as well as the harassment allegations. The district removed him from the school in December 2003. He left the district in 2004.

The lawsuit covers what Williams says happened next. In court papers, she alleges she faced hostility from staff and parents at Rainier Beach, who, she said, had no idea why she replaced a popular vice principal there with little notice.

Because people didn't know about the sexual-harassment complaint, she said, "It was assumed that I'd done something wrong."

She also said she was treated poorly at Ingraham High, her next post, where she alleged that some staff members circulated false rumors about her, and that she was initially assigned to carry out her vice-principal duties from a ticket booth, even though offices were available.

At Roosevelt High School, she said, she was demoted to a teaching position just months after she'd filed her retaliation lawsuit.

"I had been labeled a troublemaker," she said.

"The district simply marginalized me, and continued to marginalize me... "

The district, however, argued in court papers that whatever difficulties Williams may have faced, they were not tied to her sexual-harassment complaint.

At Roosevelt, for example, the district said Williams was demoted after the district concluded that she exercised "poor judgment" in handling a student crisis. The district alleges that Williams told the parent of an African-American student that her daughter and other African-American students were being "targeted and set up" because of their race by school administrators.

Williams denies saying that. She also said the district never asked for her side of the story.

Williams' $672,646 award includes $125,000 for emotional harm. The rest is for past and future loss of wages. She is also supposed to be reimbursed for attorneys' fees.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com