VILONIA -- A federal lawsuit alleges state education officials were unduly influenced by employees of the Vilonia School District in firing a veteran hearing officer who two years ago ordered the reinstatement of a student the district considered dangerous and tried to permanently expel.
Filed Friday in Little Rock, the lawsuit alleges the state Department of Education illegally retaliated against Robert Doyle for carrying out a protected activity -- holding a school district accountable for violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It also accuses the district of violating Doyle's due-process rights by "abruptly" canceling his 36-year contract as an impartial hearing officer on disability issues.
It seeks unspecified compensatory damages and payment of Doyle's attorney's fees.
The department doesn't comment on active lawsuits, Kim Mundell, spokeswoman for the department, said Tuesday. Jay Bequette, an attorney who represented the Vilonia district in the 2018 case, also declined to comment on the lawsuit, which he hadn't yet seen.
The suit was filed on Doyle's behalf by Little Rock attorney Theresa Caldwell, who represented the student and his parents in 2018 in a highly publicized dispute over whether suicidal and homicidal remarks he made on social media and in private conversations, as well as photographs he posted of himself holding a gun, posed a threat to other students.
Considered disabled because of brain injuries, the boy, then 15, was and is protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It requires the district to provide him with a free and public education in the least-restrictive environment available.
Caldwell said Wednesday that as far as she knows, the boy is still enrolled in the Vilonia district. In May of 2018, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker ordered the district to follow Doyle's directive and return the suspended ninth-grade special education student to the classroom.
The boy had been out of school for 2½ months, without any formal education or private tutoring, after the district suspended him and then filed a petition in Faulkner County Circuit Court to prevent a part of the law limiting the suspension to 10 days from taking effect.
The parents, through Caldwell, transferred the case to federal court, where Baker held a hearing and initially sided with the district in requiring the boy to stay home until an expedited state administrative hearing could be held and the hearing officer, Doyle, could determine the best placement for the boy.
On April 25, 2018, Doyle ordered the boy's return to classes, saying the district didn't prove he was dangerous. But the district defied the order and appealed to Baker, while the boy's parents also asked Baker to order the district to reinstate him. Baker granted the parents' request and issued an injunction requiring the district to reinstate the boy, though by this time only a few days remained of the school year.
Baker also scolded the district for failing to provide education services for the boy while his placement was being evaluated, and for violating Doyle's orders.
Doyle, a psychologist who Caldwell says has been recognized nationally for his knowledge and expertise, does business as Behavior Management Systems Inc. The lawsuit says his most recent contract with the department covered the term of Sept. 17, 2017, through June 30, 2019, and was subject to extension through June 30, 2024.
"Doyle's contracts were regularly and routinely renewed and extended, and he reasonably expected that his contract would be extended" through June of 2024, the suit states.
It said the department gave Doyle a satisfactory evaluation on Jan. 10, 2018, and again on July 12, 2018. But on Oct. 3, 2018, after the contentious Vilonia case and the July 1 hiring of the School District's former director of special education, Matt Sewell, as the state's assistant director of special education, the department "for the first time in 36 years rated his performance as below standards," the lawsuit states.
Caldwell noted that according to comments the department included in the evaluation, Doyle's decisions "lack sufficient legal analysis and application of law."
While the comments suggested a review of more than one decision, Doyle had issued only one substantive order between July 12 and Oct. 3, according to the suit. It says that "gives rise to an inference" that the evaluation remarks "were a pretext for canceling Doyle's contract." The order in question was issued Sept. 5, 2018.
The suit says Sewell confirmed on Oct. 16, 2018, that Doyle had been "rated down," before canceling his contract.
Caldwell suggested that Doyle's evaluator had been instructed to "rate down" Doyle. She said it's likely Sewell was waiting until after the Oct. 3 evaluation to cancel Doyle's contract, since the hearing officer had been rated satisfactory during his most recent evaluation before that.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr.