N.C. appeals court sides with Charlotte Latin on parents' lawsuit

Suit followed run-in between parents and administrators; plaintiff plans to appeal

The following article appeared in the Jan. 3, 2024, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.

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Students ages 11 and 13 were dismissed after dad argued with administrators over ‘woke’ policies; enrollment contract allows it, court says

by Tony Mecia

The N.C. Court of Appeals on Tuesday backed Charlotte Latin School’s right to expel two students whose father had gotten into a testy argument with administrators over what he said was the increasingly political direction of the south Charlotte private school’s curriculum.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel upheld a 2022 ruling by a Mecklenburg County judge that largely dismissed the legal claims brought by Doug and Nicole Turpin. Their children, then ages 11 and 13, were dismissed from the school in the fall of 2021, during a heated meeting between Doug Turpin and administrators in which the head of school, Charles Baldecchi, said that Turpin wasn’t working with the school in good faith.

The Turpins were part of a group of parents who had been questioning what they perceived as inappropriate injections of racial and sexual themes at the school. Among other things, they had objected to book selections, unisex bathroom signs, artwork that they considered inappropriate and politically slanted classroom instruction.

Doug Turpin wrote a in column for North State Journal last year that “alarming virtue-signaling and woke class assignments” started showing up at Charlotte Latin soon after Baldecchi arrived in 2020.