B-CC High teacher’s lawsuit alleging false accusations of racism to continue

Judge denies motion to dismiss in defamation case against principal, school board

July 25, 2024 3:28 p.m.

A Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School teacher’s lawsuit alleging he was falsely accused of racism is moving forward after a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge denied a motion to dismiss the case against B-CC Principal Shelton Mooney and the county school board.  

Now B-CC teacher Daniel Engler and his attorneys say they are seeking more information from Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) centered on a community letter Mooney sent that characterized an interaction between Engler and two students as a hate-bias incident.   

Engler, who has taught at B-CC for 18 years, told MoCo360 in a July 15 email that he’s been on medical leave since the February 2023 incident due to not feeling comfortable or safe enough to return to the classroom. 

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Liliana López, public information officer for MCPS, said Wednesday the district couldn’t comment on Judge John Maloney’s March decision to deny the motion to dismiss because the litigation is ongoing.   

According to Engler’s complaint seeking $75,000 filed last August, Engler was trying to keep two students in their assigned seats on Feb. 8, 2023, in an effort to learn students’ names during a health class.  

After the interaction, the two students reported the exchange to an administrator, saying that Engler said if they didn’t sit in their assigned seats, he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, which they believed was because they’re Black, according to the complaint. 

Engler denies “saying what the students alleged or making any type of racial comment,.”  the complaint said. 

Although an investigation into the matter hadn’t been completed, the complaint said, Mooney sent a community-wide letter calling the interaction a “hate-bias incident.”  

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“A teacher said to several African American students that he was unable to distinguish them from other African American students in the classroom,” Mooney wrote in the letter. “This is unacceptable and harmful behavior not in alignment with our school or districtwide values of respect and inclusivity.” 

The lawsuit alleges Mooney didn’t offer Engler an opportunity to be heard or provide notice to Engler that the letter would be sent to the school community. 

Although Engler wasn’t named in the community letter, the lawsuit argues he was “readily identifiable” as evidenced by the community reaction to the letter, including the B-CC student newspaper The Tattler reaching out to Engler about the interaction. 

The lawsuit also alleges Mooney hasn’t followed policies and procedures for other incidents at the school that could be considered hate bias incidents, including students reporting concerns of anti-Semitism followingcomments from a teacher in 2022. 

The students who raised their concerns aren’t identified in court documents, but the B-CC student newspaper The Tattler reported in March 2023 that according to seven students who said they were present at the time of the alleged incident, the community message reflected the “offensive nature of the teacher’s alleged comments,” the Washington Post first reported. 

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After Engler filed the lawsuit in August, the lawyers representing Mooney and the school board filed a motion to dismiss the case. The motion argued that the complaint failed to establish that Mooney published false information regarding Engler and failed to identify a contract breach between Engler and the school board, among other arguments.  

According to the transcript of the March 19 hearing in which the Maloney denied the motion, the judge said he had “a great number of thoughts on this,” but was going to “bite his tongue on most of them.”  

The motion was denied without prejudice, meaning a motion to dismiss could be filed at a later date.  

Most recently, Engler’s attorney, David Wachen filed a motion to compel and a subpoena seeking more information in the case. Wachen told MoCo360 that he is looking for documents including draft emails of Mooney’s community letter, documentation from the assistant principal who spoke to the two students and policies on how hate-bias incidents are handled.  

Wachen said Engler was hoping the case could restore his reputation and bring compensation for the harm that’s been done. Since the incident, Engler told MoCo360 in an email that he’s been on medical leave due to not feeling comfortable or safe enough to return to the classroom. 

“We’ve given them a whole lot of information from what they’ve asked for. They have not quite as forthcoming,” Wachen said. “He’s looking to … basically make the principal and MCPS really answer for these horrible things that they did.”  

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