A former Greenwood assistant school superintendent said Friday that she was bullied and sexually harassed by former Superintendent Montrell Greene and that others in the district wouldn’t help her.
The hearing on the termination of Mary Brown concluded Friday. Greene fired Brown in late 2014 for comments she made on a radio show that were deemed overly critical of the district.
Greene, who was fired by the school board this January, did not attend the hearing Thursday or Friday. The hearing has been drawn out for well over a year.
Brown was questioned by the district’s attorney, Carlos Palmer, and her own attorney, Lisa Ross of Jackson. Her answers provided candid glimpses at testimony previously given behind closed doors.
Brown said that Greene began harassing her after she gave testimony at the termination hearing of Percy Powell. Powell was a principal at Greenwood High School until 2014, when Greene opted not to renew his contract.
Brown said she was moved into a basement office and stripped of most of her administrative responsibilities. She said that she then gradually lost access to Greene, that he would refuse to meet with her and that she was bullied.
Among the exhibits entered into evidence over the course of the hearing were two complaints that Brown filed against Greene with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces federal laws against workplace discrimination.
Brown said neither report was ever followed up on.
“I reached out to (former school board member) Kathy Whicker. I called her to tell her what had been happening to me,” she said to Palmer. “I wanted to tell her how Dr. Greene had been treating me, and she told me, Carlos Palmer, that you told her that she could not speak to me.”
Brown said that she then sought advice from Deputy Superintendent Chester Leigh and that afterward “the abuse got worse.”
Brown said she was “publicly humiliated” at board meetings by Bill Clay, a former president of the board. “They laughed, and you laughed,” she told Palmer.
Brown said the harassment ranged from small things, such as moving her name tag to a different seat at board meetings, to having her office broken into and her personal journal stolen while she was out of town at a conference.
Brown said the police were dismissive toward her claims. She wrote a letter to the Mississippi Department of Education seeking help.
“Not only did I try to reach out to a board member, I went to Chester Leigh, I went to Dr. Greene, I went to the police, I contacted MDE, I told my husband, I cried out to God,” said Brown. “Who else can you call on?”
Before the alleged bullying started, Greene acted unprofessionally toward her in other ways, she said. She said he would call her at her home to talk about non-work-related matters, made comments about her physical appearance and at one point gave her an unsolicited Valentine’s Day gift in front of several colleagues.
On Thursday, Linda Payne, the district’s director of special education, gave several hours of testimony on Brown’s behalf.
She said that Greene had a “hit list” that targeted certain employees, and “if he felt that you were against him, then he would get you.”
The hearing has often gone into closed session for hours at a time; hearing officer Luke Schissel, a Greenwood attorney, ruled early on that testimony relating to Greene’s character would have to take place behind closed doors. However, the final two days of testimony were for the most part conducted out in the open.
Ross and Schissel butted heads early on Friday, when Ross objected to Palmer standing over Brown.
“Witnesses have been stood over ever since we began these hearings,” Schissel said.
Ross also suggested that Palmer was receiving instructions via text message from Greene during the hearing, which Palmer vehemently denied.
Although the hearing has concluded, it could be more than a month before the matter is formally resolved. Schissel has up to 30 days to compile a report on the proceedings and present it to the school board. The board will make the ultimate determination as to the legality of Brown’s termination.
•Contact Nick Rogers at 581-7235 or nrogers@gwcommonwealth.com.
