Rachel Dolezal Sued Howard University For Discriminating Against Her For Being White

Rachel Dolezal, the former president of the Spokane Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), sued Howard University for discrimination in 2002, according to court documents obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Dolezal alleged that the school denied her a teaching assistant post, a post-graduate instructorship, and a scholarship because she was white, according to The Smoking Gun.

Dolezal, who then went by Rachel Moore, claimed that the school and Howard Professor Alfred Smith discriminated against her “based on race, pregnancy, family responsibilities and gender” while she was a graduate student in fine arts, according to the Court of Appeals opinion.

She also claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artwork from a student exhibition in February 2001 “was motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over Moore,” according to the court opinion.

Judge Zoe Bush dismissed the complaint in February 2004 after finding no evidence that Dolezal was discriminated against based on race or other factors, according to The Smoking Gun.

Dolezal resigned as president of the Spokane NAACP on Monday after multiple news outlets reported last week that she had been pretending to be black. Dolezal’s parents describe themselves as white and claim that Dolezal is also white, even though she had said numerous times that she is of African-American descent.