Two former teachers at Kanye “Ye” West’s private Donda Acadamy in Simi Valley, California, allege that the rapper enabled “unsafe and illegal” conditions, including locking students in classrooms, in a suit that was filed on Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The school and three of its directors are also named in the wrongful termination action. Plaintiffs Cecilia Hailey and her daughter Chekarey Byers were employed as teachers at the school and alleged they were fired in March 2023 in retaliation for reporting code violations.
“Kanye West is clearly as bad at running a school as he is at managing his own personal and professional life, enabling an unsafe and illegal school environment for students that also discriminated against the plaintiffs based on their race,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney Ron Zambrano in a statement shared with TheWrap.
“These egregious violations at Donda Academy are just another example of West’s unusual behavior, and our clients just won’t stand for it, no matter his celebrity status. Kanye needs to realize his genius is in creating music, not in school administration,” continued Zambrano.
“I’m extremely sad about all of this. It was such a huge honor and privilege to work at Donda Academy for Kanye West. I’m a huge Kanye fan…,” Byers said. “I still enjoy his music, and I’ll never deny his talent, but while his vision for the school sounds great on paper, it’s just pure chaos and mutiny. It’s like a mental hospital being run by the patients.”
Among the strangest complaints in the lawsuit: Children were not allowed on the second floor, reportedly because of Ye’s fear of stairs; forks and knives were banned, as well as chairs and tables; and the school was “physically locked from the outside during the school day.”
Additionally, the lawsuit claims, students were not allowed to bring outside food and were fed only one meal a day of sushi. All bowls and cups were grey and students were required to wear black, while Adidas and Nike brands were forbidden.
The two women, who say they were the only two Black teachers at the institution, also state they were discriminated against based on their race, they had wages withheld, the school had no safe pick-up policy and medication was not properly stored.
The lawsuit aims to hold West and the school liable for “retaliatory wrongful termination and discrimination” as well as unpaid wages.
TheWrap has reached out to Donda Academy for comment. Ye founded the school in 2022. It’s named after his late mother, Donda West, who died in 2007.
