LITTLE ROCK — An independent investigator has concluded that Pulaski County Special School District acting Superintendent Rob McGill did not make a racially insensitive remark in the context claimed by a school district employee, according to a copy of the report released Tuesday.
The investigation, conducted by Little Rock firm Lassiter and Couch, concludes that another employee made the remark to McGill after a Jan. 19 meeting of the Arkansas Board of Education.
The investigators believe that the complainant misunderstood the situation after overhearing McGill “chastising” the employee for making the statement.
“We find that Mr. McGill did not intentionally make a racially insensitive remark,” the report says.
The allegation became an issue during McGill’s recent candidacy for the permanent superintendent’s job.
The School Board decided Monday to continue the search for a permanent superintendent instead of offering the job to McGill. On Monday night, he was the only candidate who hadn’t dropped out of consideration for the job or been eliminated from consideration by the board.
The school district released a copy of the 24-page report Tuesday after an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The report was heavily edited to hide the identities of district employees interviewed by the investigators.
The situation grew out of a Jan. 23 complaint lodged against McGill by a district employee whose name was redacted.
In the complaint, the employee claimed to have overheard McGill making the comment to other employees after the state Board of Education’s denial of Pulaski County’s request to open two charter schools. At the same meeting, the state board approved a request to open a charter school in the Forrest City School District.
Pulaski County’s presenters were white. Forrest City’s were black.
In the complaint, the employee said McGill stated, “They gave the blacks something and didn’t give the whites nothing,” and then repeated it.
The employee felt that the comment was “disrespectful toward African-Americans.”
“I was aghast. Four days later, I am still in shock,” the employee wrote. “Had the floor not been beneath me, I would have crumbled where I stood.”
Rizelle Aaron, head of the Jacksonville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s legal redress committee, then raised the allegation publicly at a Feb. 3 community forum.
McGill immediately said another employee made the statement and that he corrected that employee.
The investigators interviewed the employee whom McGill claimed made the statement in question.
That unnamed employee “admitted making a statement that someone could construe as racially insensitive, although it appears that it was made out of frustration, an attempt to determine a reason for the charters’ denials, and naivety about the sensitivities of others,” the report said.
The investigators also interviewed other unidentified witnesses who said they heard McGill correct the employee for making the remark.
The witnesses varied on exactly what was said.
One said the comment was: “Would it have been better for me to have had [unidentified] there during the presentation for diversity?”
Another recalled the comment as: “Maybe I should have let a black lady stand next to me.”
The original complainant maintained to investigators that McGill said the remark in question. The complainant also said McGill later apologized for what had happened.
The complainant sent an email to members of the School Board on Feb. 1, according to the report. This was two days before Aaron aired the employee’s allegation against McGill at the public forum.
“I met with Acting Superintendent Rob McGill today. Apology was extended and accepted,” the e-mail reads. “I want to make sure my letter does NOT interfere with his opportunity to interview for our district’s superintendent.”
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/03/2010