The ugly Charles Pugh case isn't vanishing from the public eye quite yet.
On Thursday, the Detroit Public Schools board passed a resolution insisting the state put up the $350,000 out-of-court settlement the school district agreed to pay an ex-student who said Pugh took advantage of his role as a school mentor and sexually harassed him, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press by Ann Zaniewski.
The ex-student, now 20, sued Pugh and the district, saying school officials including two school emergency managers appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder ignored warnings by the school board that it was dangerous to let Pugh run a mentoring program at the Frederick Douglass Academy because of his reputation for dating teenage boys. Pugh was president of the city council at the time.
The school district decided to settle out of court for the $350,000 on the second day of trial, leaving only Pugh as the last defendant. The federal jury ended up ordering Pugh to pay $250,000 to the ex-student.
"We think it's unfair for the citizens of Detroit to pay to settle this out of our resources, because we had nothing to do with it," school board president Herman Davis said, according to the Freep.
The Freep writes:
The school board has almost no power under emergency management. However, there is a provision in state law that says an emergency manager has to seek approval from a governing body — in this case, the board — before taking action in certain matters.
It was not immediately clear late Thursday whether Darnell Earley, the district's fourth emergency manager, plans to seek the board's approval related to payment of the $350,000 settlement. Board members believe he needs to because the amount tops a $50,000 threshold mentioned in the law.
