Federal jury finds against fired Lincoln Park High School principal in defamation suit
After an emotionally charged trial, a federal jury Monday found against a former Lincoln Park High School principal who claimed he was unfairly fired and defamed by Chicago Public Schools amid a student sex scandal nearly three years ago.
The jury of five women and three men deliberated for about 2 ½ hours before finding across the board for the defendants — the Chicago Board of Education, former CPS CEO Janice Jackson and two other administrators — and awarding the plaintiff, John Thuet, no damages.
Thuet, 38, kept his hands folded and showed no outward reaction as the verdict was read in U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman’s courtroom. Afterward, he stood and hugged a handful of supporters in the courtroom gallery, including one woman who wiped tears from her eyes.
In an emailed statement, Thuet’s attorneys, Matt Ryan and Terry Campbell, said that while they’re disappointed with the verdict, Thuet is “grateful” that the trial testimony made it clear he was never accused of engaging in any sexual misconduct or retaliating against anyone.
“During the trial — finally — every single member of the CPS administration who testified, from Janice Jackson on down, had to admit, under oath, that John Thuet was never alleged to have engaged in any sexual misconduct of any sort while he was the principal at Lincoln Park High School or at any other time during his tenure with CPS,” the statement read. ”He takes comfort in the fact that there is now a public record of those facts, so he may no longer be tarred with allegations that were, by all accounts, not about him.”
CPS, meanwhile, issued a written statement thanking the jury and saying “it’s time for all parties to move forward and put this episode behind us.”
“We believe (the jury) came to the right conclusion and saw that CPS put the interests of its students first and spoke truthfully about the nature of the issues confronting Lincoln Park High School at the time,” CPS wrote in the statement.
The six-day trial stemmed from Thuet’s lawsuit asserting he was deprived of due process, defamed and subjected to intentional infliction of emotional distress by his January 2020 dismissal, which occurred weeks after claims came to light that a student was sexually assaulted on an unauthorized overnight boys varsity basketball trip to Detroit. Other, unrelated claims of misconduct by staff members followed.
Thuet’s attorneys said the damage to his reputation from his ouster has prevented him from working in education and that, since his firing, he has resorted to driving for Uber Eats and learning how to code for work.
In opening statements last week, Thuet’s attorneys told jurors that Jackson caused the district to “fire, scapegoat, tar and feather” Thuet to save face for the newly created Office of Student Protections, which Jackson launched after the Tribune released its “Betrayed” series about the sexual abuse of hundreds of CPS students and the district’s repeated failures to protect children.
Attorneys for CPS, meanwhile, argued Thuet failed to take accountability for his actions or to act on the “hundreds of hours of training” he’d received in proper reporting of misconduct.
A key witness in the trial was Jackson, who testified that it was the right call to fire Thuet and that a series of public statements she later authorized about the decision were truthful.
“I would not take back anything,” Jackson told the jury Wednesday during often-contentious questioning by Thuet’s attorney.
Jackson also took some of the more vocal parents on the Local School Council to task for ignoring the “health and welfare” of student victims in favor of protecting the careers of adults. In a previous sworn deposition, Jackson had said the parents were “acting like fools.”
“I do think that the behavior of the parents, not all, but many of them, was completely unacceptable,” said Jackson, who left CPS in 2021 and now heads the scholarship program HOPE Chicago.
The trial was largely limited by Feinerman to potential damages surrounding Thuet’s firing and its justification by CPS, not the underlying allegations of student behavior.
Feinerman told jurors at the trial’s outset that two students “engaged in a voluntary sex act” in a Michigan hotel room during a weekend trip for the Motor City Roundball Classic tournament in December 2019. Video was recorded of the act and shared without one student’s consent, Feinerman said.
Another basketball player reported an unsubstantiated version of events to his father, claiming that two other players also had sex with one of the students that night without her knowledge.
The Tribune has previously reported CPS’ Office of Student Protection found “insufficient evidence” to support that player’s allegation, but did find the two were “present” during the sex act.
When the district announced the removal of Thuet and his assistant principal, Michelle Brumfield, about a month after the Detroit trip, they cited “multiple allegations of serious misconduct involving the athletics program” at Lincoln Park High.
Though in many cases the district didn’t specify who the claims were against, the district has said that school officials did not protect whistleblowers or handle allegations of sexual misconduct with due seriousness or proper protocol and were dishonest with families.
In her opening statement, CPS attorney Susan Best said Thuet did not immediately call the Office of Student Protection or the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services after learning about the incident, as required. He also did not act quickly enough to protect a whistleblowing student on the team, who Best said eventually moved out of state after being threatened by fellow and former students after the incident.
Despite the limited nature of the claims in the trial, some of the testimony grew heated.
During Jackson’s testimony Wednesday, Thuet’s attorneys showed jurors angry emails sent by Lincoln Park High School parents to Jackson and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the wake of his firing, including one alleging the school’s leadership had been unfairly “decapitated” by the district “in what appears to be a test pilot for a new CPS policy.”
Jurors also watched public comments by enraged parents at the Chicago Board of Education’s meeting on Feb. 26, 2020, when a series of speakers demanded that Thuet and others be immediately reinstated.
Jackson testified that while Thuet had clearly done some good things and was well-liked, his failure to follow his training was inexcusable.
“I would never fire a principal without cause,” she said. “Mr. Thuet failed incredibly on multiple occasions to protect students. ... Both things can be true. You can be likable and also be incompetent.”
Jackson also defended authorizing her communications team to provide “background” information to reporters as the scandal continued to mushroom, leading to news articles saying that CPS had “fully substantiated” allegations that Thuet and other school leaders had “fostered a dangerous culture for students,” among other infractions.
“I assumed that they would be damaging to him but they were also factual, so we weren’t saying anything that we did not know to be true,” Jackson said of the statements.
The trial’s first witness was Thuet himself, who said he first learned of the allegation of potential misconduct on the basketball team on Dec. 31, days after the Detroit trip, and reported it to higher-ups at the Office of Student Protection two days later.
Office of Student Protection officials did not request further action from him when they called him on Jan. 2 either, Thuet testified. He relayed more information to them after an in-person meeting with the whistleblower. He said he also personally counseled students affected.
As the case erupted in public, Thuet had been preparing to interview with LPHS’ Local School Council for a contract position as principal. Laura LeMone, head of CPS’ Network 14 that oversees LPHS, had wished him good luck on Jan. 27 and provided feedback as he prepared. But by Jan. 31, she had informed Thuet at a downtown meeting that he was terminated.
Thuet said he was “in complete shock” and “I thought I was going to lose everything.” He said he struggled to explain the situation to his oldest son. As a result of his termination, he was put on CPS’ do-not-hire list and barred from volunteering at CPS, including as his son’s volleyball coach.
There are at least two other federal cases pending against CPS related to the athletics uproar, including from former girls basketball coach Larry Washington and boys varsity head coach Pat Gordon.
