Despite widespread praise for his leadership of LA Unified, including standing ovations at recent school board meetings, Superintendent Ramon Cortines finds himself facing a familiar adversary, a veteran district employee who is now accusing the district of firing him in retaliation for his past lawsuits against Cortines.

Scot Graham, who accused Cortines of sexual harassment in three previous lawsuits, is claiming in a new one that they cost him his job. He was dismissed by the district in April after 15 years as Director of Real Estate.

“As a direct and proximate result of the unlawful acts of Defendants, Plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer from loss of earnings and other damages,” Graham says in his lawsuit, filed in a Los Angeles state Superior Court.

LA Unified spokeswoman Shannon Haber said the district would not comment on personnel matters.

Graham’s accusations came to light in 2012, a year after Cortines had retired from his second of three periods serving as superintendent. Graham claimed Cortines made a series of unwanted sexual advances and comments toward him dating back to 2000 when Graham was first hired as Director of Real Estate and Cortines was running the district during his first stint. Two previous lawsuits never made it to court, as one was dismissed and the other was withdrawn.

Cortines has denied any wrongdoing while admitting only that he had a sexual encounter with Graham.

When Cortines returned to run the district last October, Graham was still working at LA Unified. He filed a third lawsuit in February that repeated the previous accusations, only with added details of alleged disparaging and sexually-tinged remarks Cortines had made about district leaders. Graham went on medical leave in October, according to the February lawsuit and the new complaint, as a result of stress-related medical problems caused by Cortines’s return.

Graham’s new complaint says he received a letter from the district informing him that his medical leave had been exhausted, and, “effective April 16, 2015, your name was placed on a reemployment list for 39 months. . .If you wish to request additional unpaid leave, please direct your request to your former supervisor.”

The complaint also said, “This letter effectively removed Mr. Graham from his position as Director of Real Estate of the LAUSD, and therefore terminated him from his employment with the LAUSD. In violation of the California Education Code, he was terminated before given an opportunity to request additional unpaid leave — required under the Education Code — therefore, rendering any ostensible invitation to request additional unpaid leave completely meaningless.”

Graham’s lawsuit claims that he was terminated in direct retaliation forthe previous lawsuits, in which he also accused the district of retaliation, in the form of reducing his managerial duties.

The new lawsuit only names the district as a defendant and does not include Cortines as a specific defendant, as the February suit did. It also claims Graham was discriminated against because of his medical disability, which he says evolved from a toxic working environment he said Cortines created.

We’ve all seen this in person or on TV: One lawyer says something provocative or inappropriate, and the opposing lawyer leaps to his feet, saying “Objection, your honor.”

“Sustained,” says the judge. “The jury will disregard that last remark.”

After yesterday, we’re now all in the jury box, trying to figure out what to make of Scot Graham’s third and latest lawsuit against the district with his descriptions of sexual misconduct by Superintendent Ramon Cortines and the atmosphere of intimidation and sexual intemperance inside LA Unified headquarters.

We also have to decide whether unseemly remarks Graham attributes to Cortines about Monica Garcia and the rest of the board deserve to be carefully considered or summarily disregarded.

Sadly, though, in the confines of LA Unified, a school district that seldom gets out of its own way, it really doesn’t matter.

Whether true or false, the images shaped by Graham’s characterizations are hard to shake: Cortines, as a sexual predator; Cortines, describing Garcia as a “fat slovenly lesbian”; Cortines, regarding the board as a group of special interest ciphers.

Only a court can decide the veracity of such claims as they create a hostile work environment. But the possibility than even some of it might be true will linger, undermining whatever trust parents, teachers and board members have in a man who led the district as superintendent twice before, making him the board’s singular choice to succeed John Deasy last year, paying him $300,000 for an eight-month contract. 

It’s hard to imagine that any number of apologies and denials from Cortines would erase some of the images Graham has described. Never mind whatever happened between Graham and Cortines. Cortines had previously confessed to one incident of “consensual spontaneous adult behavior” with Graham; anything beyond that, what’s the difference.

More important are two other issues — one for a court to decide, the other for the district.

The first is whether there is truth to assertions that Cortines or anyone else has created a workplace environment that others would regard as hostile and whether the conditions rise to the level of illegality.

The second is whether a school board that has fought mightily to shed its own image of dysfunction can sustain a level of trust in the superintendent.

This could be especially challenging for Garcia, the longest-serving member of the board, whom Graham singled out to recount the ugliest of the words he attributed to Cortines. While graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between Graham and Cortines were included in two earlier lawsuits brought by Graham, the words Graham recalled Cortines using to describe Garcia and the board were not.

Perhaps rightly, Garcia chose yesterday not to issue a statement in response to the lawsuit. Anything she said would have brought more attention to what Graham attributed to Cortines.

Was Graham right in what he claims Cortines said? From Garcia’s point of view, what difference does it make. Could she ever be sure either way? Could she ever believe Cortines’s denial? Could she ever accept an apology?

By extension, the same questions are now before the other six board members, who have to decide whether they believe Graham, irrespective of whatever a court might decide. If the members are contemplating the same uncertainties that confront Garcia, they are also reexamining their relationship with a superintendent they thought they could trust.

Maybe the first question for the board to consider is why the district refused to investigate Graham’s original charges against Cortines before he was brought back last year. The allegations were a central part of his first two lawsuits and remain the core of the third. Teachers are held in teacher “jail” on far less serious allegations.

Cortines was hired last October as an interim replacement for Deasy. He was to be the steady, experienced hand until the board found a suitable permanent replacement.

Initially, he was expected to remain through the current school year, yet at a recent board meeting, members joked that they might even ask him to stay a second year.

If any of Graham’s assertions are to be believed, let alone proved, it seems doubtful they would make such jokes any longer.

Ray Cortines

Old accusations of sexual misconduct by LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines resurfaced today in a new lawsuit that includes explosive new assertions sure to cause anger, embarrassment and disruptions at district headquarters.

Scot Graham, who was hired by Cortines in 2000 to be the district’s Director of Real Estate, renewed his charges that Cortines, 82, made unwanted sexual advances toward him and that the district retaliated against him for bringing the matter before district lawyers. Graham, who is 58, made similar accusations in two previous lawsuits, based on incidents during Cortines’ first two stints as superintendent.

But this latest complaint filed in a downtown California Superior Court goes well beyond the previous lawsuits, making liberal use of graphic language in characterizing Cortines as a sexual predator who openly made derogatory and sexually-tinged comments about a number of past and present district leaders, including the district’s current chief lawyer, David Holmquist. Graham also alleges that Cortines described board member Monica Garcia as a “fat slovenly lesbian” and that senior district officials routinely had “sexual side arrangements.”

The complaint also raises a new allegation that the district failed to investigate Graham’s claims before rehiring Cortines last year to run the district for a third time as superintendent. That failure, Graham charged, has created a work atmosphere in which Graham says he feels “ongoing fear of Cortines” who “would use his power to terminate Graham for refusing Cortines’ sexual advances.”

Garcia did not respond to an email and voice message, seeking comment.

Graham’s first two lawsuits did not proceed into court for various reasons. Cortines has denied any wrongdoing while admitting only that he had a sexual encounter with Graham.

Graham’s accusations only came to light publicly in 2012, a year after Cortines had retired and before he returned to the superintendent’s office last year. The new lawsuit names the district and Cortines as defendants.

“The issue is very simple, as Mr. Graham’s claims of sexual harassment have never been adjudicated, and the district has yet to conduct an independent, objective investigation of Mr. Graham’s claims,” Graham’s lawyer, Rob Hennig, told LA School Report. “He’s saying not just was he sexually harrassed, but he was sexually assaulted.”

Hennig also said the new lawsuit focuses on the physical and emotional distress Graham has suffered since Cortines was rehired last year. Herndon Graddick, a former president of GLAAD who is acting as a spokesperson for Graham, explained Graham’s alleged symptoms in an email. GLAAD is on organization dedicated to fighting for equal treatment for gays and lesbians.

“Scot has been diagnosed with a stress related seizure disorder since Cortines’ rehire, which I have personally witnessed and the doctors say has been triggered by the events at work. Because of that he has been out recently on sick leave,” Graddick said.

Overall, the new lawsuit (Warning: some of the details are sexually graphic) paints a picture of Cortines as an executive who believed he wielded ultimate power in the district — including over Graham and the school board — creating what Graham asserts remains an intimidating and hostile workplace made all the more uncomfortable by Cortines’ advances toward him.

The complaint includes a number of explicit comments Cortines is alleged to have made that were not included in the previous actions, among them the characterizations of Garcia, who was board president from 2007 through 2013; descriptions of district officials whom Cortines regarded as “hot”; and Cortines’ contention that, according to Graham, the entire board was comprised of “modestly competent, part-time special interest monitors.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Cortines expressed his sexual attraction to a number of district employees, including Holmquist, and that Cortines said he would set meetings with those people simply “because he thought they were hot.”

The new lawsuit also alleges that the district publicly outed Graham as a homosexual without his consent, although it is only listed in the facts of the case, not as a “cause of action.” The previously withdrawn lawsuit did list Graham’s alleged outing as a cause of action for invasion of privacy.

Whether true or not, the new lawsuit represents the first time Garcia has been publicly labeled a lesbian. Graddick dismissed any apparent irony of Graham complaining about being outed while using the remarks of a third person to out another individual.

“I have no idea whether Monica Garcia is a lesbian. Strong women are called that all the time in an attempt to disparage them,” Graddick said. “Further, I do not accept that anything that may be in this lawsuit is the responsibility of anyone but Cortines and the LAUSD for not doing the right thing in the first place.”

As he did in the earlier lawsuits, Graham claims Cortines made a number of unwanted sexual comments and advances toward him in 2000 and in 2010, both at district headquarters and at a secluded ranch house Cortines owns outside of LA County.

Despite the unwanted advances in 2000, Graham said in the lawsuit he maintained a personal and professional relationship with Cortines when Cortines returned to the district in 2009 because he feared losing his job if he did not. Those fears, he said, accounted for his willingness to stay a weekend at Cortines’ ranch house despite his misgivings.

The lawsuit claims Graham brought his accusations against Cortines to Holmquist, who encouraged him not to pursue them. Graham also contends that he reported his claims to two of his supervisors and another district lawyer, but the district never investigated them.

In May 2012, after Cortines had retired, LA Unified officials held a press conference announcing that an agreement had been reached between Graham and the district that settled his claims. Graham had yet to bring a lawsuit, but he had also not yet signed the agreement, which was to give him $200,000 and health benefits with the understanding that he would resign from his job.

Graham never signed the agreement, and his accusations were not publicly known until the press conference. It was at this press conference Graham claims he was outed by district officials.

At the press conference, a statement signed by Cortines was released that denied any wrongdoing but acknowledged a single incident with Graham that Cortines described as “consensual spontaneous adult behavior.”

Graham also accuses the district of retaliating against him for bringing his claims in the form of reducing his employment responsibilities. It also says Graham has had to endure encountering Cortines at district headquarters, where they both work a floor apart and that Cortines’s return has caused him anxiety.

The previous lawsuit that was withdrawn asked for $10 million in damages; the new lawsuit does not specify an amount.

• Graham wants $10 Million From District: In addition to suing former superintendent Ramon Cortines for sexual harassment, LAUSD employee Scot Graham also wants $10 million from the school district for outing him, defaming him and placing him in a false light. Graham and LAUSD were on the verge of a settlement which would have given him $200,000 and lifetime benefits, but the deal fell apart when the district, according to Graham, prematurely announced it and the identity of Graham. Daily News

• AIG Will Pay LAUSD $79 Million In Settlement: AIG had refused to pay out insurance claims on LAUSD-owned properties with costly environmental hazards. LA Unified bought the insurance in 1999, as it was beginning a $20 billion constructions spree. LA Times

More reads after the jump.

• Lawsuit, Bill Aim to Keep K-12 Education Free in California: The ACLU suit is hitting out against fees for things like sports, field trips and textbooks, even the the California constitution guarantees every kid a free education. Some of these fees are legal, some aren’t, but many districts don’t seem to care. A bill in Sacramento, AB 1575, would create a formal complaint process for the illegal fees. LA Times

• Plan to Split Carson High Into Three Schools Riles Parents, Teachers: Many in the community are worried that the split will segregate the high achievers from the low ones. There is also a “general wariness, a concern that the Los Angeles Unified School District is tinkering with a local institution from afar.” The 2,800 will stay on the same campus, but 1,000 kids will join one of two pilots: the Academy of Medical Arts or the Academies of Education and Empowerment. Long Beach Press-Telegram

• Some Schools Adopting Longer Years to Improve Learning:  Increasing time in school is one of the best ways to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor students, education advocates say. NYT