Akron schools spokesperson sues district, alleging discrimination and retaliation
Photo: WKSU / Ideastream Public Media (file photo)Akron Public Schools spokesperson Stacey Hodoh has sued the school district in federal court, alleging discrimination and retaliation — and naming her boss, Superintendent Mary Outley, as a defendant.
Hodoh filed the 30-page lawsuit herself on Thursday in U.S. District Court, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. The case has been assigned to Judge Sara Lioi of the Northern District of Ohio, and Hodoh is asking for a jury trial.
Hodoh, a 60-year-old Black woman, became the district's director of strategic communication, media, community relations and outreach in December 2024. She has been on paid administrative leave since May 8. She declined to comment on Thursday, and the district said it generally does not publicly comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit accuses the district of discriminating against Hodoh based on her age, race and sex by refusing to pay her for the additional duties she performed as interim director of information technology from February to December 2025. As a comparison, the suit cites a white male supervisor, Steve Keenan, who was paid $9,227 in supplemental pay for the 11 weeks he served as interim director of facility services. Keenan sued the district in federal court in July over his own claims of discrimination and retaliation; that case remains ongoing.
Hodoh also alleges the district handled her complaints differently from those submitted by white male employees. When Keenan and other white men complained about then-Superintendent C. Michael Robinson, the school board hired an outside law firm, whose April 2025 report substantiated those complaints. Hodoh says district leaders ignored or rejected her complaints while continuing to pursue complaints against her, the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, Hodoh filed her first complaint within a week of being hired in December 2024. That month she filed a charge of race and sex discrimination, harassment and retaliation with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, dual-filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. An Aug. 13 letter from the EEOC gave her the right to sue within 90 days.
The suit describes a tense encounter with school board member the Rev. Gregory Harrison, who Hodoh says tried to intimidate her in an elevator as board members returned from an executive session. Harrison has denied the allegations and lodged a counter-complaint accusing Hodoh of threatening him by saying he would be "put up on posters." In the lawsuit, Hodoh said she was referring to being posterized, a common basketball expression for being outdone in public, and that the comment was not a threat.
Hodoh says she faced retaliation for complying with a subpoena to testify at the termination hearing of another district employee, custodial supervisor Darian Johnson. The lawsuit emphasizes the timing of her administrative leave, noting it came 42 days after that testimony, less than two weeks after she updated her federal complaint and five days after she sent a letter to the school board about Outley creating a hostile environment for employees.
The lawsuit also addresses a second district investigation that accuses Hodoh of being intentionally negligent in managing the district's information technology systems, after an "abnormality" detected on June 23 caused a brief districtwide network outage. Hodoh denies the claim, noting she stopped overseeing the IT department in December 2025 and has had no access to district systems while on paid leave. She accuses Outley of spreading false information suggesting she is connected to the cyberattack. The cause of the incident has not been shared publicly.
Hodoh is asking the court to end her administrative leave, return her to her district job, award her back pay and money to cover her attorney fees and other damages, prevent the district and Outley from retaliating against her, and remove references to her leave and related adverse decisions from her district files.
The dispute is the latest turmoil at the top of Ohio's fifth-largest school district. Robinson, the previous superintendent, resigned under pressure in April 2025 after an outside investigation found he had created a toxic, demeaning and hostile work environment built on bullying and retaliation.
Sources: Akron Beacon Journal, "APS spokesperson files federal discrimination lawsuit against district" (Nov. 13, 2026, full text verified); Signal Akron, "Akron Public Schools director of communication sues district" (Nov. 13, 2026). Event date verified: Thursday, November 12, 2026 (lawsuit filed).
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