Jury awards millions to Seattle student punched by teacher

SEATTLE — A King County jury on Thursday awarded $8 million to a former Seattle Public Schools student who was punched in the face by his middle school math teacher in 2018.

The verdict came after three days of deliberation and nearly a month of testimony last month in Superior Court in Seattle.

The jury found that Seattle Public Schools was responsible for the injuries Zakaria Sheikhibrahim, 21, sustained as a result of the January 2018 incident where James Johnson hit then 13-year-old Sheikhibrahim in the face and threw him out of a Meany Middle School math class during an argument about the student having his backpack in class, which was against school policy.

The jury also found that the district violated the state’s nondiscrimination and equal educational opportunity laws, by failing to provide Sheikhibrahim with an educational environment free from discrimination.

The judge is still considering a request from Sheikhibrahim’s attorneys to establish a court monitoring system to deal with systemic racism within Seattle Public Schools.

“We are absolutely happy,” said Sheikhibrahim’s mother, Farhiya Omar. “We struggled a lot, but we made it to the end. Thank you to the judge and jury, but most of all to the mothers who showed up every day when I could not be there myself. I will never forget it.”

Sheikhibrahim’s lawyers had sought between $76 and $124 million in damages. The district’s attorneys argued that Sheikhibrahim was entitled to about $100,000 or less.

When attorneys’ fees are added, the payout could be close to $10 million, Lara Hruska, one of Sheikhibrahim’s attorneys, said.

“This is a life-changing result for Zak,” Hruska said after the verdict. “It vindicates eight years of suffering. My hope is that this is an impactful result for the school district. This has always been about making the system better, making sure that no child ever has to experience what Zak did. And with the new superintendent coming in yesterday and this trial, it’s an exciting moment for our whole community.”

The award could be one of the district’s largest recent payouts. Last year, the school system entered into a $16 million out-of-court settlement with a former student who alleged she was sexually abused by two Garfield High School coaches.

Bev Redmond, Seattle Public Schools’ chief of staff and spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday that the district takes matters of student safety seriously. The statement declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but said the district wants to “reaffirm our deep commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students.”

“Discrimination of any kind has no place in our schools,” the statement continued. “We will continue to provide each student with equitable access to education, no matter their race, color, or national origin. … Ultimately, our mission remains clear: to ensure that every student experiences a supportive learning environment rooted in safety, respect, and belonging.”

Sheikhibrahim’s lawyers alleged that their client suffered a traumatic brain injury and has major depressive and post-traumatic stress disorders as a result of the attack, which significantly changed his life’s trajectory and opportunities.

They argued that Seattle Public Schools negligently hired and supervised Johnson and kept the teacher on staff despite warnings and complaints about his behavior. They also alleged the district created a hostile learning environment and discriminated against Sheikhibrahim, who is Muslim and of Somali descent.

The district’s attorneys acknowledged that Johnson hit Sheikhibrahim. At the start of the trial, the district admitted that it had not kept Sheikhibrahim safe and that it had negligently retained, trained and supervised Johnson.

But its attorneys pushed back on claims that Seattle Public Schools had negligently hired Johnson and discriminated against Sheikhibrahim and students of East African descent. The district’s attorneys argued that SPS has focused on Black boys and on addressing disparities between Black students and their peers.

While the jury found SPS liable for discrimination and the harm Sheikhibrahim endured as a result of the assault, it did not find the district liable for negligence in hiring Johnson.

Sheikhibrahim’s attorneys argued that if the district had properly vetted Johnson when it hired him in 2008, it would have discovered that Johnson had been reprimanded for pushing a student into a locker in the Clover Park School District, south of Tacoma, in 2004.

But Chris Carter, a regional executive director who interviewed Johnson for his first job with Seattle Public Schools at the now-closed African American Academy, testified that he followed the district’s hiring policy at the time. He contacted Johnson’s then-current employer, the Kent School District, and did background checks. But he said he was not aware of the Clover Park incident.

Witnesses included Sheikhibrahim, his brother, mother and former students at Meany Middle. The list also included medical and education experts, and high-profile current and former district leaders, including former Superintendent Brent Jones, who received an email in 2017 listing concerns about Johnson from Mark Perry, a former principal and Johnson’s former boss at Nova High School.

A former student testifying for the district painted a different picture of Johnson, calling him “playful” with students and “helpful.” He said he’d never heard Johnson use racial slurs or witnessed Johnson being violent with students before the January 2018 incident or treating East African or African students differently.

But other students said the opposite. One testified that she regularly went to Meany’s front office — starting months before the assault — to complain about Johnson, with the understanding that the principal would get her complaints.

But Meany’s principal, Chanda Oatis, testified that she had no knowledge of complaints from students before the January incident.

Johnson got a five-day unpaid suspension for hitting Sheikhibrahim, and was ultimately assigned to Washington Middle School, led by Katrina Hunt, Oatis’s sister, the next school year.

Johnson and SPS didn’t officially part ways until 2021, following a 2020 report by KOUW that included audio of Johnson admitting to another student that he’d punched a student the day he hit Sheikhibrahim. The report also included Johnson’s past discipline.

After the KUOW report, SPS launched its own investigation and found that Johnson had used racial slurs, threatened students and failed to report the previous discipline. The district’s human resources department recommended firing him in 2020 and entered into a settlement agreement with Johnson in 2021 that ended his employment.

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