Katy ISD weighs legal aid for chief
Defamation lawsuit possible amid bullying accusations
Nearly two months after a citizen accused the Katy Independent School District superintendent of bullying him when they were in middle school, setting off a controversy that drew nationwide attention, the district’s board will consider whether to hire a lawyer to pursue a legal case in support of Superintendent Lance Hindt.
The board on Thursday night plans to meet in a closed session, followed by an open session to consider “engaging special counsel to pursue legal action for defamation on behalf of the superintendent, other school officials, and/or staff,” according to a meeting notice. The board also will consider an unspecified amendment to Hindt’s contract.
Hindt, who was hired to lead the sprawling district west of downtown Houston in August 2016, has denied the bullying allegations while acknowledging that he did “dumb things” as a younger man prior to a religious awakening. But he also lamented in a statement the “evil among us,” pushing back against those who “will do anything to destroy someone’s good reputation and 27-year career.”
Trustees have stood behind Hindt, a Katy-area native who previously led Allen ISD.
But his statements have not satisfied critics, who say bullying is pervasive and tolerated in the district. One critic has used a website to step up criticism of Hindt, going so far as to raise questions about what he says is potential plagiarism by Hindt in his doctoral dissertation at the University of Houston. A Katy ISD spokeswoman told a local news station there was “zero truth to this allegation.”
The Katy ISD agenda doesn’t specify what allegation sparked talk of a defamation case. District officials would not comment other than to confirm items on the agenda. “We will be discussing both of those items,” said Katy ISD spokeswoman Maria DiPetta.
Ashley Vann, president of the Katy ISD board, also said it would be premature to comment.
“Due to the Texas (Open Meetings Act), I am not able to discuss the ‘why’ before it’s even fully presented to the entire board in closed session tomorrow evening,” Vann wrote in an email to the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. “Thanks for understanding the gravity of this matter and the laws that bind me in this role of public service.”
Attorney Jonathan Kotler, a constitutional law expert at the University of Southern California, said it is unusual for a governmental body to “bankroll” a personal injury action — such as a defamation case — on behalf of an employee for actions that happened before he or she was hired.
“It’s not unusual for public bodies to hire outside counsel to litigate on their behalf when they don’t have the expertise to do it. But that is strange,” Kotler said during a phone interview.
As a government official, Hindt will face more difficulty proving that he had been defamed than if he were a private citizen, Kotler said.
“Because he’s a public official, he’s got to prove actual malice,” Kotler said. In other words, Hindt’s legal team will have to prove not only that the allegations were incorrect but that the accuser knew them to be incorrect or should have known.
“Actual malice is intentional falsehood,” Kotler added. “If it’s an innocent mistake, it can’t be malice — it’s not ‘reckless disregard’” of the truth.
Competing petitions
Hindt generally received high marks as superintendent of the 77,500-student district prior to the controversy. Then on March 19, Katy businessman Greg Gay (who has also gone by Greg Barrett, using his mother’s maiden name) stepped up to the microphone during a public forum at a Katy ISD board meeting and accused Hindt of tormenting him more than three decades earlier when both were students at West Memorial Junior High School. He said he was taunted because of his legal last name and said that Hindt had shoved his head into a boys room urinal. Gay said he’d contemplated suicide after the incident.
“Lance, you were the one that shoved my head in the urinal,” he told the 53-year-old educator.
Some thought Hindt seemed to laugh it off, but he later attributed his reaction to being shocked and said he was not intending to dismiss Gay’s remarks. The following day, he issued a statement saying he didn’t remember his middle school classmate and that the claim “simply isn’t true.” Gay produced a possible witness, Katy businessman Chris Dolan, who backed up elements of his account and concurred that Hindt was a “bully” in middle and high school. A circuit court judge in Alabama later waded into the controversy, telling news outlets that he recalled Hindt as a “vicious bully”when they both attended Taylor High School, where Hindt played varsity football.
After a video of Gay’s remarks went viral, Hindt struck an apologetic yet defiant tone in an April 2 letter to Katy ISD employees. He did not discuss the specific allegations but apologized for the “negative attention brought against our school district and town.”
“When I was young and dumb — I did dumb things,” he wrote. He closed by asking employees, “I trust that you will judge me based upon who I am today, not the allegations of more than 30+ years ago.”
The letter didn’t put the matter to rest, as competing Change.org petitions emerged on whether Hindt should be fired from his job, which paid a base salary of $375,000 a year at the time of his hiring.
A former Katy ISD student started a Change.org petition calling for Hindt’s firing, referencing a now-dismissed 1983 civil lawsuit alleging that an 18-yearold Hindt severely beat a man in a traffic incident. More than 5,800 people had signed that petition as of Wednesday. A competing petition voicing support for Hindt and purporting to represent “the silent majority” received more than 2,200 signatures.
‘PR nightmare’
Sean Dolan, a Katy ISD parent who is no relation to Chris Dolan, has had an ongoing dispute with Hindt and the school board over questions of bullying within Katy ISD. On his website, abetterlegacy.com, Dolan raised questions about Hindt’s 2012 doctoral dissertation from UH, saying it was “remarkably similar” to one published four years earlier by a Ph.D. student at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
A UH spokesman said this week that the university has policies and procedures in place to ensure academic integrity and address allegations of academic misconduct. But in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, he said, “UH cannot comment on allegations made about a specific student.”
On Tuesday, Sean Dolan said he doubted he was the “intended target” of any proposed defamation lawsuit.
“I’m not personally aware of any evidence of defamation against Lance Hindt, so I don’t have much to say about it,” Dolan said.
Although he said he hadn’t been told that he was a target, Dolan still believes the threat of a lawsuit is meant to intimidate vocal critics of the Katy ISD.
“It is an unconscionable tactic of a bully to even threaten a frivolous lawsuit against a citizen who is expressing their First Amendment rights. It’s unAmerican,” Dolan said.
Gay also was shocked when he heard the district was considering hiring an outside lawyer to file a defamation lawsuit. He couldn’t believe that even a comparably wealthy district like Katy ISD would make such an expensive choice.
“They’re going to waste taxpayers’ money. (They should instead) use the money to give the teachers a raise,” he said Tuesday.
Gay also didn’t know whether he would be a target of the lawsuit. He said the district had not contacted him at all. Last month, a Hindt spokesperson said that the superintendent was interested in having a dialogue with Gay.
“I’m the one the whole time who has been saying, ‘I don’t want Lance (Hindt) to lose his job.’ I want him to fix the problem,” Gay said.
He said the district is about to get into another “PR nightmare” if officials decide to go to court.
“It just started quieting down,” Gay said.
The Katy ISD board of trustees has strongly backed Hindt since the allegations against him were first raised. In a message to the public, Vann said the district fully vetted Hindt when they hired him in 2016.
“His strong leadership and fulfillment of our vision since then has affirmed our decision,” Vann said in a March 26 statement. “We stand united with Dr. Hindt today.”