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The state’s Acting Commissioner of Education Kevin Dehmer denied Newark Public Schools’ request to remove board member Dawn Haynes over a conflict of interest, according to his decision issued Tuesday.
In his decision, Dehmer said the school district failed to prove how the board would “suffer irreparable harm” if Haynes was not removed and if a threat to sue the district by Haynes’ daughter prevails.
Dehmer’s decision does not end the case but instead orders it to continue at the state’s Office of Administrative Law, which reviews contested cases for state agencies and issues initial decisions, with additional hearings as needed to close it.
The school district petitioned to unseat Haynes in December claiming a conflict of interest after her daughter, Akela Haynes, filed a legal claim against Newark Public Schools alleging that she experienced religious, racial, and gender discrimination and other harassment during her time as a Newark School of Global Studies student.
Paul Brubaker, the district’s communications director, did not respond to questions on Wednesday about why the district called for the immediate removal of Haynes or if it would continue to argue for the board member’s removal.
Before Dehmer’s Tuesday decision, state Administrative Law Judge William J. Courtney had also denied the district’s petition earlier this month. In his decision, Courtney wrote that “there is no reason why” Haynes can’t abstain “from participation in any such discussion or board action” on the claim filed by her daughter, Akela Haynes.
Haynes, a six-year board member, and her daughter have been vocal about the racial discrimination students and teachers said they faced at Global Studies. In her claim, Akela Haynes alleges that between September 2020 and December 2022, she “suffered pervasive and consistent” discrimination, sexual harassment, assault, battery, intimidation, bullying, cyber-bullying, emotional distress, and other inappropriate and unlawful treatment.
Earlier this month, Chalkbeat Newark obtained an unreleased draft of a consultant’s report that found students and teachers at Global Studies endured anti-Black racism and religious harassment.
Akela Haynes sent her claim to the district in October and under state law, can file a lawsuit after six months. Two former Global Studies teachers also filed a lawsuit against the district last spring alleging that Global Studies administrators and district leaders created a hostile work environment where they experienced racial discrimination and retaliation, according to that lawsuit, which is ongoing.
The district’s petition to the state, signed by Superintendent Roger León, the district’s attorney Brenda Liss, and school business administrator Valerie Wilson, was discussed by board members in a November 2024 session closed to the public. In its petition, the district argued that Haynes and her daughter are members of the same household and under state law, Haynes “must be immediately removed from her positions as board member because she is directly or indirectly interested in her daughter’s claim.”
But Haynes and her daughter deny they live in the same household, according to Dehmer’s decision this week. Akela Haynes is a freshman student at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia where she lives on campus and intends to live with her cousin in Marietta, Georgia during the summer months, according to the decision. In the legal claim sent to the school district, Akela Haynes listed her mother’s address “for purposes of convenience,” but provided the state with proof that she no longer lives with Haynes in Newark, read Dehmer’s decision.
Dehmer also said the district failed to prove that the board would “suffer greater harm” than Haynes will suffer if the request for her removal was not approved. The district’s school board has not publicly discussed their petition to unseat Haynes or voted on a formal action against Akela Haynes’ claim.
Earlier this month, at a school board retreat, Haynes demanded a public apology from the board because of the “public scrutiny” and “false information given to my board colleagues,” she said. She also said the district is “missing the point” about the allegations of racist harassment at Global Studies and called the boards efforts to remove her “a public lynching of a Black woman.”
“It’s not about the Global Studies report that board members never had access to unless we were under the watchful eye of the general counsel and still do not have access to,” Haynes said, “it’s not about my daughters pending lawsuit, it’s about the students who stood before us who was exhausted after being harmed and ignored.”
Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
