Kanye West's Donda Academy Slammed for Inconsistent Pay, Racial Discrimination & More, Rapper Said to Be 'Afraid' of Stairs in New Lawsuit
Kanye West and his school Donda Academy are both named in a lawsuit filed by two former educators who claim they were unfairly fired by the school.
The tuition-based Christian prep school has been a source of controversy since it opened in 2022, with reports suggesting that families who attended had to sign NDAs.
Kanye also seemingly closed and then almost immediately reopened the school amid backlash for the rapper’s antisemitic statements.
Now, Cecilia Hailey and her daughter Chekarey Byers are bringing a lawsuit against the school and its founder. It includes some shocking allegations.
Read more about Kanye West’s lawsuit…
According to Rolling Stone, the lawsuit accuses the school of firing Cecilia and Chekarey after they shed light on various problems such as “health and safety violations.”
In particular, the lawsuit alleges that “teachers were not trained or required to have Basic Life Support or mandatory-reporting training.” In addition, the school was reportedly not equipped “for students in need of educational services, additional testing, or individualized learning plans.”
The two educators claim to have been the “only female, African American teachers” at the school and that they faced discrimination based on their race. They were fired in March 2023, reportedly for lodging multiple complaints about how things were run.
Additional claims include that the school had a bullying problem, that they were only served sushi and that things such as crossword puzzles were not allowed. Students were also allegedly forced to sit on the floor as chairs were not provided. Furthermore, the women claim that they did not receive their full pay.
Interestingly, the suit claims Kanye kept all learning on the first floor because he was “reportedly afraid of stairs.”
The former teachers say that they were “threatened” not to reach out to Kanye about their various complaints before they were let go as a form of retaliation.
“Kanye West is clearly as bad at running a school as he is at managing his own personal and professional life, enabling an unsafe and illegal school environment for students that also discriminated against the plaintiffs based on their race,” a lawyer involved in the case claimed in a statement. “These egregious violations at Donda Academy are just another example of West’s unusual behavior, and our clients just won’t stand for it, no matter his celebrity status. Kanye needs to realize his genius is in creating music, not in school administration.”
Chekarey added that it was “such a huge honor and privilege to work at Donda Academy for Kanye West,” describing herself as a fan.
“I still enjoy his music, and I’ll never deny his talent, but while his vision for the school sounds great on paper, it’s just pure chaos and mutiny. It’s like a mental hospital being run by the patients,” she continued.
If you missed it, Kanye recently backed down on previous antisemitism, revealing what and who helped him change his mind.