LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A former administrative assistant at a private school, which has been attended by the children of many celebrities over the years, today sued her former employer, claiming she was wrongfully fired because she is black, female and has health problems .
Christina McCrary’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed against the Wildwood School alleges wrongful termination, racial, gender and medical discrimination, differential impact on racial discrimination, retaliation and failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation. She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
An email sent to the school’s media representative after normal business hours was not promptly responded to. McCrary was hired in March 2019 as an administrative assistant to middle and senior principals and was one of the few black people on the Wildwood School’s ranks of more than 100 staff, according to her lawsuit. McCrary was put on a work performance improvement plan in March and given three work areas where she needed to improve, the lawsuit says. She was given 30 days to improve her performance and was able to fix the issues well before the allotted time was up, the lawsuit says.
However, the Wildwood School still micromanaged McCrary for simple tasks and intentionally found areas to criticize her work, the lawsuit alleges. To force her out of her job, the school gave her chores and unrealistic times to complete them, according to her lawsuit.
Weekly meetings were held between McCrary and two supervisors that were ostensibly held to improve her job performance but were actually held to “create an inaccurate record of events and prepare the plaintiff for failure and eventual termination,” they say it in suit. McCrary took pre-approved time off in mid-June so she could have surgery, but when she returned on July 5, she was fired, according to the lawsuit. She refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement that was offered to her in exchange for a two-week settlement, the lawsuit says.
McCrary believes she was fired because of her race, health and gender and that the school employed other staff who were not in a protected class and had job performance equal to or worse than the plaintiff’s, the lawsuit states. McCrary also believes other Black Wildwood School staff were unfairly fired and that some students have complained about racism and a lack of diversity at the Wildwood School, the lawsuit states.
McCrary began having daily anxiety attacks and one day in early 2021 was involved in a traffic accident that left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, the lawsuit states. Her younger sister, who was allergic to the chemotherapy available for her stage 2 cancer, died within nine months, leaving behind a 2-year-old son who is also the plaintiff’s nephew, the lawsuit says. McCrary has suffered from embarrassment and additional emotional distress since her release, the lawsuit states.
Some of Steven Spielberg’s children, two of Dustin Hoffman’s offspring and Demi Moore’s entire brood attended the Wildwood School, as did Rob Reiner’s children and a daughter by Meryl Streep. The kindergarten through 12th grade has one campus for elementary students near the Los Angeles-Culver City border and a second campus for high school and middle school students in West Los Angeles.
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