Wayland Has Seen Two Racial Discrimination Complaints In Recent Years: Filings

WAYLAND, MA — A Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) complaint lodged by Wayland Superintendent Omar Easy last week was the second filed against the school district by a Black employee in recent years, records show.

In early 2020, former Wayland METCO director Mabel Reid-Wallace filed an MCAD complaint against the district, according to minutes from a February 2020 school committee meeting. Reid-Wallace served as the director of METCO — a desegregation program that allows Boston students to attend suburban schools — from 2000 until her resignation in March 2019.

Reid-Wallace did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her MCAD filing, but did speak about Easy and her own experiences with racism in the district at the school committee's Jan. 4 meeting — the first meeting held following the discovery of racist graffiti targeting Easy.

In 2014, the Wayland School Committee requested the state Inspector General investigate whether Reid-Wallace misused METCO program funds. Then-inspector general Glenn Cunha responded to the school committee in 2015, saying he had found "no conclusive evidence" Reid-Wallace had misused funds, but did find problems with the district's internal financial controls.

At the time of the inspector general investigation, the school committee was chaired by Ellen Grieco, who is the vice chair of the committee today — and who Easy named in his complaint along with Chair Chris Ryan as creating an "unlawfully hostile work environment," according to the filing.

At the Jan. 4 meeting, Reid-Wallace upbraided the school committee over its treatment of Easy, particularly for opening an investigation into a meeting he held with other administrators in October. She described the inspector general investigation into her as agonizing because it called her morality and integrity into question, similar to what's happening to Easy, she said.

"Check your system, check your hearts," she told the committee on Jan. 4. "What do you believe about people of color?"

The school committee's treatment of Easy also sets an example, Reid-Wallace said, whether that's emboldening people to write racist graffiti or exposing METCO students to it.

"Look at what you do. Look at what you did that precipitated those two words written on that side of the building," Reid-Wallace said, referring to the December graffiti incident. "You gave people the permission to step out and say, 'This is how I truly feel.'"

Reid-Wallace's complaint was not leaked to the public as Easy's was, so details about the former METCO director's allegations are not available. The filing had not gone to a MCAD public hearing as of this week, according to the commission.

Easy filed his complaint Friday, describing a pattern of microaggressions, hostility and explicit racism he's endured since becoming Wayland's first ever Black superintendent in 2021. The filing names the school district, town, school committee and Grieco and Ryan.

Easy has declined to comment through his attorneys, and the school committee placed him on leave without explanation on Wednesday. The school committee has also declined to comment about the MCAD filing, but did release a statement Saturday asking for "patience" from the public.

"[T]he school committee wishes to reiterate that the Wayland Public Schools seeks to foster a welcoming, inclusive, anti-racist environment; our actions have and will continue to demonstrate a commitment to those principles. We are asking the members of our school community for their patience during this time."