Tiffany Wright, a Black woman, has filed a lawsuit against her former employer, alleging a white co-worker told her to “go back to Africa.” An article published yesterday (Dec. 19) by The Daily Beast stated that the incident happened when Wright was working as a teacher at New Roads School in Santa Monica, California in September 2019.

Last week, Wright filed court documents arguing she was ineligible to renew her contract as a teacher after speaking out about her white co-worker’s repulsive statement. The lawsuit claimed the private prep school failed to stop harassment, wrongfully terminated her and fostered a hostile work environment. An excerpt from her filings read, “As is true with many organizations that project a certain image or identity… New Roads was completely different from what it claimed to be.”

The document further explained, “At the school, Plaintiff experienced almost the exact opposite of anti-racism, being confronted with absurd and offensive comments like, ‘Go back to Africa.’ When she complained about this and the overall racism she had experienced, she was ignored, shunned, told to shut up, ‘eat s**t’ and was even threatened by the school’s administrators.”

Wright began as a teacher at New Roads in 2018 after being attracted to what appeared to be a diverse learning community. The high school’s website promises to “liberate young individuals through the pursuit of justice, equity, and opportunity; [raise] generations of powerfully compassionate advocates in an intellectual habitat driven by authentic diversity — [and] ultimately [empower] them to disrupt systems that produce inequality and build a more just future.”

In her filings, Wright added that teachers were pressured “to take better care of the full-paying white students.” Tuition at the Southern California school costs over $43,000 annually. The woman also stated instructors were asked to change students’ low grades and that one presentation included an image of Vice President Kamala Harris next to a photo of an ape.