Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, opened Donda Academy in September 2022. The school reportedly closed down the following month, around when his antisemitic comments led several brands he had business partnerships with to cut ties. The closure of the rapper’s unaccredited Christian school was apparently temporary, however, and since it’s been back up and running, former employees have sued him and the school.
Isaiah Meadows filed suit on Thursday for wrongful termination as well as breach of contract, alleging education, health, safety, and labor violations, according to Page Six. Meadows was the assistant principal at the 2020 iteration of the school, then called Yeezy Christian Academy, before it later became Donda Academy, The Guardian reports. He claims in the filing that there were several issues with the school, including exposed wiring, septic tank issues, and no hot water, a particular problem during a global pandemic.
The oddest allegation is probably that Ye does not “like glass.” Per Page Six, the suit reads, “In the middle of the main classroom, a skylight was left without glass inevitably allowing rain to fall directly inside, where water would soak into the floor, which would lead to a moldy smell for the next few days,” specifying, “The skylight was intentionally without glass because WEST expressed that he did not like glass.”
Meadows said he raised these safety concerns, and was fired. (He was reportedly later reinstated, but demoted. Vanity Fair has reached out to Ye and Donda Academy for comment.)
In April, former Donda Academy teachers Cecilia Hailey and Chekarey Byers also filed a lawsuit against Ye and the school, alleging racial discrimination and wrongful termination, Page Six reported at the time. Besides reportedly claiming they were the only Black women hired as teachers at the school, Hailey and Byers said in the filing that Ye was “afraid” of stairs, so no classes were held on the second floor, and he didn’t like conventional cleaning products. According to a copy of the lawsuit provided to Vice, no utensils were allowed, and the children were fed sushi for lunch every day. The suit reportedly alleged the kids were not allowed outdoors during the school day and that the doors were locked from the outside. Crosswords and other puzzles were allegedly banned, which isn’t a problem really, just strange.
To keep a running list, Ye is allegedly against: crosswords, glass ceilings, forks, cleaning products, fire safety, and stairs.
According to NBC News, Ye’s attorney Gregory Suhr said in a recent Los Angeles County Superior Court filing, “None of it is true and the allegations do a disservice to the Donda Academy’s current staff and students and their parents who will attest to their positive experience.”
Lawyers for Donda Academy reportedly said in a separate filing in May that Hailey and Byers’s suit was “fatally uncertain, ambiguous, and unintelligible.”
The fate of these lawsuits is still TBD, but Donda Academy is accepting applications for the 2023-2024 school year.
