BURBANK : Lawsuit Served as School Board Meets

Three Burbank school board members were served with a lawsuit during a televised meeting Thursday, visibly angering board President Denise Lioy Wilcox.

Wilcox grabbed the papers, containing sex and race discrimination claims filed by a former high school principal, from a courier and threw them over her shoulder.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “I’m being served as an individual board member and I’m being sued as an individual board member to take away my home and my property.

“It’s a thankless job.”

Former Burbank High School Principal Keiko Hentell filed the lawsuit in federal court two months ago, charging sex and racial discrimination played a role in her demotion in March.

The lawsuit asks for unspecified punitive damages and names district Supt. Arthur Pierce and individual board members as defendants.

Hentell, a Japanese American, has said she was demoted because of her close work with minority students at the high school--a charge the school board has denied.

She declined to discuss her lawsuit, but said Thursday night’s event was “something arranged by my attorney.”

Wilcox and board members Elena Hubbell and William Abbey were served during a brief break between reports on guidance and reading programs at Burbank’s elementary schools. Pierce and board members Robert Dunivant and Joseph Hooven have already received copies of the lawsuit.

“It was a flashy way to do it,” Hubbell said. “Why wait until we were on television? It was done intentionally.”