Rachel Dolezal sued Howard University for discrimination

Rachel Dolezal, the former president of Spokane, Washington’s NAACP who resigned Monday amid controversy over her racial heritage, unsuccessfully sued Howard University in 2002 for discriminating against her because of her race.

Dolezal’s lawsuit against Howard, a historically black university, alleged that the university denied her a teaching assistant job, further employment and a scholarship because she was white. The lawsuit also claimed that Professor Alfred Smith, chair of the Art Department, specifically kept Dolezal from serving as a teaching assistant one semester and removed some of her artwork from a student exhibition because of racial prejudice.


Howard University is “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult,” lawyers for Dolezal, who then went by Rachel Moore, alleged.

Ultimately, Washington D.C.’s court of appeals affirmed a lower court decision finding that the actions taken against Dolezal were not racially motivated. The case was dismissed and she was ordered to reimburse more than $2,700 in costs incurred by the university, as well as an additional $1,000 for an “obstructive and vexatious” filing attempting to delay her medical exam.

The lawsuit was first reported by The Smoking Gun blog.

Dolezal resigned from her position leading Spokane’s NAACP Monday following her parents public statements last week that she is a white woman posing as an African-American.

In her application to become chairwoman of Spokane’s city government’s Office of the Police Ombudsman Commission, Dolezal listed her racial background as white, black, and American Indian, leading to allegations that she may have violated the law by misrepresenting herself.