Rachel Dolezal Once Sued Howard University for Discrimination
The plot thickens for Rachel Dolezal, who has been outed by her parents recently for pretending to be Black for several years.
The former president of the Spokane, Wa., NAACP chapter who stepped down from her post Monday once sued her alma mater Howard University and professor Alfred Smith on claims that the institution discriminated against her because of her race, the Smoking Gun reports.
Dolezal received her master's degree in fine arts from the historically Black university. In 2002, she claimed that as a student, Smith, the chairman of Howard's department of art, blocked her from several opportunities because she wasn't Black. A Washington, D.C., judge dismissed the case in February 2004.
The Smoking Gun reports:
She alleged that Smith and other school officials improperly blocked her appointment to a teaching assistant post, rejected her application for a post-graduate instructorship, and denied her scholarship aid while she was a student.
The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.
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(Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via AP, File)
