by Andrew Walden

An alleged Hawaii Mission Academy classroom attack over ‘white privilege' has led to a lawsuit filed in First Circuit Court May 26, 2022.

Ironically, according to the complaint, the victim is “of ‘mixed race’ ancestry – part Hispanic, part African American, part Caucasian and part Native American.”

In a brief representing active duty Lieutenant Colonel Dan Curtis, his wife Nubia Curtis and their daughter Kallie Curtis, 18, local attorney Bosko Petricevic alleges: 

this case is about Kallie, a person of mixed racial heritage, a senior at HMA and expectant college bound high school graduate, who was racially and emotionally victimized and berated by an HMA Pastor and educator and his wife (“Clouzet Defendants”) during what should have been a regularly scheduled Bible class on Marriage and Relationships (pursuant to Seventh Day Adventists’ [SDA’s] prescribed and published Secondary Religion curriculum standards) at HMA on February 9, 2022. In a disgusting racial attack, Clouzet Defendants racially abused and shamed Kallie into denying her non-Caucasian heritage and humiliated her in front of her friends and fellow students.

On or about February 9, 2022, while conducting Bible class, Defendants Pastor Jean and Tammy (Clouzet) singled out Plaintiff Kallie in front of her senior class solely due to the color of Plaintiff’s skin, and verbally commanded and forced Kallie to “accept her white privilege” ….

Defendants Pastor Jean and his wife Tammy verbally berated, assaulted and harassed Plaintiff Kallie publicly and in front of her class, unrelenting until Plaintiff verbally committed to “accepting her white privilege.”…

As a direct result of the above-described incidents, Plaintiff Kallie’s grades have significantly suffered – out of her 6 classes, three courses have dropped by two letter grades and two of the six courses have dropped by three letter grades to now include a “D” and an “F.”…

The plaintiffs allege racial discrimination and breach of contract:

… a lecture of “white privilege”, rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT), along with Gender Race Theory (GRT) is also nowhere in the SDA’s and HMA’s approved Pacific Union Conference curriculum for the 12th grade religion class as codified in the North American Division Seventh-day Adventist Church Secondary Religion Standards, and under which SDA and HMA promised to educate Plaintiffs’ children….

Defendant Jean Clouzet is employed by SDA as a full time Pastor at the Wahiawa SDA Church and the Hawaii Conference and therefore subject to their rules and regulations.

Defendants Jean and Tammy are active leaders in multiple SDA youth programs across Oahu….

All of the Defendants have broken their policies and regulations codified in the Pacific Union Conference (PUC) Code of Conduct on which Plaintiffs have relied on when they entered into contract with Defendants to pay the money for Kallie to be educated by the SDA and HMA.

This is specifically captured in the SDA’S Nondiscrimination Policy (paragraph A23-160), Harassment Policy (paragraph E10-140), Personal Conduct (3b), Improper Conduct (3c) and the SDA PK-12 Educator’s Certification Manual conduct requirements listed in paragraph 1.4.2 and suspension revocation of certificates - paragraph 4.10.

Assuming that to be true, according to the PUC Standards, the course would fall within the scope of, “BC.12.7 Be able to understand the dynamics of relational and life skills” and “BC.12.7.1 Understand the different stages of relationships (single, friendships, dating, etc")”.

There is no logical, reasonable or academic relationship or basis upon which to assert that forcing Plaintiff Kallie to “accept her white privilege” in front of her peers falls within the academic goals or guidelines of understanding the dynamics of relational and life skills or “understanding the stages of relationship” and differentiating between “single, friendships and dating.”

Defendants have breached their school policies, codes of conduct and breached Plaintiffs’ contract for failure to deliver services and curriculum that was written and agreed upon when first entering into said contract….

Plaintiffs contracted and paid for Bible/Religion classes, not for an indoctrination of race-based teachings and racial attack on their children.

Plaintiffs paid approximately $14,000.00 in full to Defendants in August 2021 for Plaintiff Kallie’s annual tuition.

The tuition paid on behalf of Plaintiffs to Defendants HMA and SDA served as contract between the parties.

The Clouzet Defendants, in their misconduct, not only committed a breach of duty while in an unsupervised position of trust and authority (provided to them by Defendants SDA and HMA) over impressionable young students, but also knowingly and willfully engaged in a breach of contract for the specific educational services and religion instruction that Plaintiffs initially contracted for.

The misconduct of Defendants has breached all standards of conduct and expectation in the delivery of a formal, private institutional education that Plaintiffs contracted for at the outset of entering into such a contract with Defendants.

Private schools pushing ‘white privilege’ indoctrination on students may be particularly vulnerable to expensive legal counter-attack.  Lt Col Curtis explains:

Unlike public schools or any school that receives federal funding, I don’t have the ability to petition the federal Department of Education Office of Civil Rights further to bring a complaint of racial discrimination. I did try that route along with numerous private mediation attempts with the school and their governing body of the SDA schools across the State the (Hawaii SDA Conference)   …

A dismissal letter from the Office of Civil Rights, provided to Hawai’i Free Press by Lt Col Curtis, states:

“Our records indicate that Hawaiian Mission Academy does not receive federal financial assistance from this Department and is not a covered public entity under Title II. Therefore, OCR does not have the authority to proceed with an investigation of your complaint.”

How much money will private school boards be willing to pay lawyers for the ‘privilege’ of pushing this latest pseudo-intellectual academic fad on their students?

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PDF: Complaint