Claims against mom dismissed in former Blue Valley dancer’s discrimination lawsuit
Claims against a Blue Valley Northwest dance mom were dismissed Thursday in an ongoing lawsuit alleging racial discrimination of a former member of the school’s dance team.
Katie Porter, a teacher at a Blue Valley Elementary School, was listed as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in U.S. district court for Kansas in January by former Blue Valley Northwest Dazzler Camille Sturdivant.
Sturdivant alleges in the suit that she suffered racial discrimination and was ostracized from team events in retaliation for reporting that discrimination.
According to the suit, Blue Valley Northwest dance coach Carley Fine was fired after Sturdivant and her parents showed the school’s principal screenshots of text messages between Fine and choreographer Kevin Murakami complaining that the dancer had only been given a spot on the University of Missouri Golden Girls dance team because of her race.
The year before, Murakami allegedly cut Sturdivant out of a dance because her skin was “too dark.”
After Fine was fired, the suit says Sturdivant was excluded from end of the year dinners with the team which Fine attended even though she had been directed not to have contact with any members of the dance team.
The suit alleges that because Porter was present at these dinners with her child she was acting as an educator for the district, participated in excluding Sturdivant due to her race and was “deliberately indifferent to the Constitutional rights of Sturdivant.”
According to court documents, the judge dismissed the claims against Porter Thursday because there were no allegations that Porter had knowledge or understanding that Sturdivant had been excluded. The court also said Porter had no supervisory role over Fine and acted as a parent rather than an employee of the district.
The judge denied a similar motion for dismissal Thursday filed by Fine.
The Blue Valley School District, Fine, Murakami and Blue Valley Northwest principal Amy Pressly are still defendants in the suit.
