Top civil rights and sexual harassment attorney Gloria Allred sued Gilroy’s school district Thursday for negligence and failing to safeguard a 15-year-old high school girl from a teacher’s lurid sexual taunts even after her mother complained.
The lawsuit presents publicly for the first time the explicit nature of some of the text messages Gilroy High School chemistry teacher Doug Le is alleged to have sent to the girl in October 2014.
It was filed in Santa Clara County Superior court on behalf of the girl and her mother, Celest Benn of Gilroy.
San Jose Police arrested Le, 25, on April 26 on suspicion of enticing minor boys by dressing as a woman and asking them for nude photos, according to the lawsuit and police.
Le resigned from his teaching position April 29, some 18 months after Benn first alerted school officials to his behavior and the danger to her daughter and others.
Le also coached track and was a student mentor and advisor at GHS, according to the suit.
At a Thursday press conference in front of the Gilroy Unified School District offices on Arroyo Circle, Allred would not speak aloud all of the words in the texts, using a single letter at one point instead of the word for the male genitalia.
They were, however, listed in the lawsuit as follows, with some editing: “You suck d . . . Yeah your whore mouth can fit whole apples in there . . . You’ll die alone . . .” and another about defecating on the teenager.
The suit alleges the district and high school’s failure to prevent and stop Le’s behavior more than a year ago harmed the girl and that stopping and reporting him then might saved as many as 500 minor boys from Le’s advances.
It calls Le’s and the district’s behavior “outrageous and extreme” and alleges also that the district knew that “Le had engaged in dangerous and inappropriate conduct, both before his employment [by GUSD] and during that employment.”
Allred also claims that the district violated state law by not reporting what they knew to the proper authorities.
Benn at the press conference read a prepared statement in English and Spanish that said, in part, “I am disgusted that the district did not do enough to protect my daughter. She had to leave her friends, her classes at Gilroy High School that we had moved cross country for her to attend.” Her daughter transferred from Gilroy High School to Christopher High School, but Allred said Le’s harassment of the girl continued even after Benn reported his behavior to school officials.
Benn has said she tried to meet with GHS principal Marco Sanchez and district superintendent Debbie Flores the day after learning of the texts, but they refused to see her. It was only after she threatened to go to the media that the district looked into the matter, she said.
Le was “slapped on the wrist,” Allred said, and was allowed to continue teaching and his sexual harassment of minor students.
The suit was filed “to hold the school district accountable for the harm they have caused her and our family,” Benn said.
Vicki Barone, a GHS English Learners teacher, said she helped train Le to work with English Learner students in his advanced placement, biomedical courses.
At the press conference, she told Allred that Le was classified as a temporary, or non-permanent, employee, and later said those employees can be let go at any time.
“Yet this guy ends up back, that is weird,” she said.
Barone accused the district and high school of being more interested in its wrestling program and advanced placement classes than in doing the right thing.
“Kids are being harmed,” she said, adding that when she emailed colleagues at GHS about the Thursday press conference she received hostile responses.
When two women spoke at Wednesday’s school board meeting in defense of principal Sanchez, who is widely respected in the community, some in the audience applauded them.
The district, in a statement read at both the Wednesday board meeting and Thursday press conference, claims it took all the action it could against Le and that while unacceptable and unprofessional, his behavior was not criminal and did not rise to the level of dismissal.
The lawsuit alleges Benn’s daughter “has suffered and continues to suffer great pain of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation and loss of enjoyment of life.”
The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, including punitive damages.
