School superintendent used racial slurs, threatened to kill black workers: Lawsuit
A lawsuit filed against a school superintendent in Georgia claims that he repeatedly used racial slurs and at one point even threatened to kill black workers at a construction site. Geye Hamby reportedly used the racial slurs during recorded conversations.
The suit also alleges that the 49-year-old Buford City Schools Superintendent uttered the slurs at least eight times while slamming black temporary workers in conversations recorded on audio, according to Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Atlanta on August 1.
According to the lawsuit, Hamby can be heard saying in the video: "[Expletive] that [n-word]. I’ll kill these [expletive] — shoot that [expletive] if they let me."
The lawsuit, filed by Mary Ingram, a 66-year-old paraprofessional who worked for the district for 18 years, also claims that Hamby used the term "deadbeat [n-word]" while referring to black people. The school superintendent, however, has declined to comment on the allegations against him and has cited the advice of attorneys for the district.
The suit, however, doesn't provide the exact context of the conversation or exactly whom the remarks were directed at. It also does not specify how the audio recordings were obtained, the newspaper reported.
Ingram's lawyer Ed Buckley said that he is certain that person speaking in the recordings is Hamby. He, however, did not specify as to how the recordings were obtained.
Reports state that Ingram's issues with Hamby and the school district began when she questioned why its green and white logo did not include the color gold, which represented the city’s black school district prior to integration in 1969.
The paraprofessional then filed a petition in support of including gold color to the logo. She brought the issue up to the school board in 2014 before taking it to City Hall meetings.
Ingram, while talking to the Journal-Constitution recently, said: "I was afraid we were about to lose our heritage. I wanted them to know it was important to the community."
The lawsuit claimed that Ingram had another unpleasant run-in with Hamby when he called her into a meeting and asked her to tell him whatever she had planned to say during a future school board and city commission meetings. Ingram reportedly refused to oblige him and told him that it would be an infringement of her First Amendment rights.
The suit added that Ingram, since her run-in with Hamby, began receiving negative performance reviews after years of positive feedback. She was also reportedly told to not encourage students to smile after they got off the bus before school.
She was ultimately fired in June 2017 for “being disrespectful, argumentative and unfriendly” as well as not being a “good fit” in a school environment.
"I couldn’t move. I just froze. My legs felt weak… Before this happened, I looked forward every morning to getting up and going to work to do things for the children," Ingram said after she was informed about the firing.
She added that she did not file her lawsuit until after hearing the audio recordings she had obtained and said: "This is the man who is over our children."