Gateway school board members are mulling whether to pay $50,000 to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by an alum who claims she was not hired as the district’s athletic director because she is in an interracial marriage.
The lawsuit, filed in 2021 Korie Morton-Rozier claims she experienced race discrimination when the school board opted to hire football coach Don Holl, who is white, to also serve as athletic director.
The decision came after former school director Paul Caliari, in a group text message chat with other school directors, inquired whether Morton-Rozier “date(ed) the darkies,” according to the lawsuit.
Morton-Rozier has been married to a Black man since 2005, according to the lawsuit. She is athletic director at Oakland Catholic High School in Pittsburgh.
Former school board member Rick McIntyre said he and Caliari were discussing Morton-Rozier’s potential hire over the phone, and about 15 minutes after their conversation, Caliari messaged the group chat and said “Didn’t she start dating the darkies.”
TribLive obtained a portion of the group message thread from 2020, which consisted of all the Gateway school directors at the time, along with former superintendent Bill Short.
Several minutes later, Caliari replied: “Misfire. Nobody on this text chain married into the Darki family.”
Board member Susan DeLaney, who is Black, replied to Caliari, “Paul, please explain your text, so I don’t misunderstand you.”
Caliari’s reply said that he went to college with a pair of brothers, Brian and Pete, whose last name was “Darki.” He said a friend used to date the wife of one of the brothers and was asking what had become of her.
“I told him she started dating one of the darkies,” Caliari wrote in the group chat.
Later that evening, the board voted 7-1 to confirm Holl’s hiring as athletic director. DeLaney voted against the hiring, and former board president Brian Goppman, who said he felt it was clear that Caliari was referencing Morton-Rozier in his messages, abstained from voting.
Caliari attended Waynesburg University as an undergraduate, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Morton-Rozier is represented by Pittsburgh attorney Todd Hollis, who told TribLive that his investigation team had contacted the school, which reported that neither a Brian nor a Pete Darki — nor anyone else with that surname — had attended the school.
The lawsuit states that the board knew Morton-Rozier was the target of the epithet.
Caliari could not be reached for comment.
The district issued a statement in 2021 saying that its employment practice includes a “non-discrimination policy” that is in accordance with state and federal laws. They outlined the district’s hiring process for the athletic director position from the applications to the whittling down of candidates.
The school board did not discuss the settlement in any detail at its workshop meeting Tuesday night.
Next week’s voting meeting is set for 6 p.m. Jan. 27 at the district administrative offices, 9000 Gateway Campus Boulevard in Monroeville.