Horace Mann Faces Suit Over Firing
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A former teacher at Horace Mann is suing the school, saying it unfairly fired him after he wrote a novel that seemed to mock it.
Andrew Trees argues in a lawsuit filed yesterday that Horace Mann administrators conducted a “smear campaign” against him as punishment for writing a book mocking a made-up private school, Academy X. In January, the administrators fired him, despite calling him an “excellent teacher” and without following due process procedures promised in school documents, according to the suit.
Horace Mann administrators did not return a request for comment yesterday.
“Apparently certain trustees of Defendant Horace Mann saw reflections of themselves or their children in the fictional Academy X, and pressured the school administration to punish Plaintiff Trees for having the temerity to critique their kind,” the lawsuit says.
The book was published in 2006 under the name “Anonymous.” But Mr. Trees’s identity quickly became clear. The book tells the story of young English teacher at a New York City private school who stands up to administrators for lying in college recommendations and changing grades as favors to wealthy parents, and then is unfairly persecuted by them — “an unfortunate example of life imitating art,” the suit says.
Things end well for the book’s protagonist, but Mr. Trees’s agent, Judith Riven, said that he has not been as lucky. Mr. Trees has not yet been able to find a job since leaving Horace Mann, she said.
The lawsuit says he was also the victim of speculation. To set teachers against him, administrators spread a story that he was planning to write a second nonfiction book in which he would “name names,” the suit says.
Mr. Trees’s departure raised concerns among students and some teachers. A history teacher, Peter Sheehy, wrote to the student newspaper that it could have a “chilling effect” on open discussion at the school.
The lawsuit, first reported on the Web site Gawker.com, asks the school to pay Mr. Trees unspecified compensatory damages.