McKinnon Secondary College teacher alleges campaign of racial hatred

HOLLYWOOD mega star Angelina Jolie has become an unwitting party to an alleged campaign of racial hatred against a Melbourne secondary school teacher.

Actor Angelina Jolie hugs kids Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt after winning a Nickelodeon Annual Kids' Choice Award last year. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

HOLLYWOOD mega star Angelina Jolie has become an unwitting party to an alleged campaign of racial hatred against a Melbourne secondary school teacher.

“Our staffroom does not need to look like Angelina Jolie’s family,” teacher Manu Chopra claims a fellow McKinnon Secondary College teacher told him, according to Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal documents.

Mr Chopra claims the same female teacher also told him: “we do not need more brown skins in our staffroom.”

After complaining about the teacher’s comments Mr Chopra claims he was victimised by the principal and people acting under her instructions.

“I felt that my feelings and my opinion did not matter. Others could treat me as they wanted in the workplace without fear of any recrimination for their inappropriate behaviour merely because of my race,” tribunal documents state.

The accusations relate to incidents that occurred in 2013 and are detailed in a tribunal ruling on how many of the 16 people Mr Chopra has named should be joined as parties to his recent claim under the Equal Opportunities Act.

Mr Chopra claims the same teacher responsible for the Jolie jibe called out “good job” when another female staffer came over to a female teacher he was talking to at the school staff party and asked her to dance.

He says the staffer responded with a “thumbs up” and later admitted she had been asked by the other teacher to save their colleague from “the brown skinned man”.

Other allegations include that he was called “unprofessional” in front of students, was “undermined”, was bullied in union meetings, was screamed at by a teacher and shouted at by the Assistant Principal, that an investigator believed others over him and that people behaved unethically and unsympathetically,

The accused include a number of teachers, the school’s principal and vice-principal, along with a department lawyer, investigator, regional director and managers of its conduct and ethics branch.

In a finding this week VCAT Senior Member Bernadette Steele removed all the respondents apart from the department, the principal, the alleged “Jolie jiber” and the “party rescuer” as parties to the proceedings.

Ms Steel did this for reasons including that the state was legally responsible for the actions of its employees, that Mr Chopra had not sought remedies against any individual, to simplify the proceedings and because many accusations were not supported by details that indicated they would be prosecutable under the Equal Opportunities Act.

The matter has now been sent to compulsory conference.

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