Former Mount de Sales teacher files discrimination suit against the school

Former Mount de Sales Academy band director Flint Dollar filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, alleging that the Catholic school discriminated against him because of his sexual orientation.

Dollar, an openly gay man, said he signed a new contract May 1, 2014, to teach at the private school in Macon for the 2014-2015 term. He has said he told the school of his plan to marry his partner in October 2014, and that no one at the school objected.

David Held, the school’s president, fired him May 21, 2014.

Dollar, who now lives in New York, contends that he was fired because of his marriage plans and that he didn’t comport with the school’s “traditional gender stereotypes.”

The school released a letter last year saying that Dollar wasn’t fired because he’s gay, but because same-sex marriage goes against Catholic doctrine.

Attempts to reach Held for comment Tuesday were not successful.

In his suit, Dollar said that before his meeting with Held, the school had never communicated to him that an employee could be fired for not adhering to the Catholic church’s teachings on marriage, and that Dollar had never been informed that the school had an official position on marriage.

The school, he maintained, has accepted beliefs and behavior by heterosexual employees who violate or do not adhere to the church’s teachings, including those on marriage. Those include the employment of heterosexual faculty members who lived together while not married, those who were divorced and those who had divorced and remarried. The school also has employed non-Christian faculty members, including those who were Jewish, Buddhist, atheist or agnostic.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a finding that “there is reasonable cause to conclude” that Dollar had been discriminated against based on his sexual orientation.

In his suit, filed by Macon attorney Charles E. Cox Jr., Dollar said a school administrator approached him in November 2010 about teaching band at the school. Dollar declined, but the same administrator asked him again weeks later. Dollar met with Held in January 2011, the suit said, and during that meeting, he told Held he was gay and living with his same-sex partner.

He applied for a job, and in April 2011, the school offered him one teaching instrumental, choral and general music as well as piano.

In October 2013, Dollar and his partner decided to marry, and they began planning for their wedding in July 2014. Dollar told faculty members about those plans, as well as Held.

The complaint says Dollar complied with the school’s Professional Excellence Standards during his employment at Mount de Sales. The school’s faculty handbook doesn’t require teachers to be members of the Catholic church, and it doesn’t require any faculty members to adhere to the church’s teachings on marriage.

The handbook says the school is an equal employment opportunity employer and strives to comply with laws prohibiting various kinds of discrimination, including sexual orientation and marital status.

The handbook sets forth certain “recognized causes for corrective action,” but failure by a faculty member to comply with the Catholic church’s teachings on marriage is not listed as one of those causes. There’s also a Code of Ethics for Mount de Sales employees, but it doesn’t require school employees to adhere to the church’s teachings on marriage either.

The suit seeks a jury trial, saying that the school acted with malice or reckless indifference to Dollar’s federally protected rights. Dollar seeks back pay, reinstatement to his job, compensation for his emotional pain and suffering, and attorney’s fees.

Staff writer Oby Brown contributed to this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398.

This story was originally published June 30, 2015 at 1:32 PM.