Teacher’s lengthy battle to expose staffroom ‘racism’

A former McKinnon Secondary College teacher’s nine-year legal battle with the Education Department over racism claims has come to an end.

Former McKinnon Secondary College teacher Manu Chopra has lost a nine-year legal battle with the Education Department.

A former McKinnon Secondary College teacher who accused staff of racism because of his “brown skin” has lost a legal battle with the state government dating back nine years.

Maths teacher Dr Manu Chopra was working at the leading state school in 2013 when he alleged a staff member said they didn’t “need any more brown skins in our staffroom”.

He also alleged his colleagues said he made the staffroom look like “Angelina Jolie’s family”, giving rise to a racial discrimination claim against the school and up to 14 staff members.

Dr Chopra also alleged he was “denigrated and humiliated” at a staff party, with one female staff member having to “save” another woman from talking to the “brown-skinned man”.

Dr Chopra brought 18 actions against the Department of Education over six years, including six separate VCAT proceedings to access documents under Freedom of Information.

Some of the FOI requests involved extensive searches of emails, transcripts, meeting notes and documents for words such as “brown skin” and “Angelina Jolie”.

Angelina Jolie with her children Vivienne, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Maddox.

Others related to the hiring of venues at a range of other schools including Grovedale College, Belmont High, Mount Waverley Secondary College, Westall Secondary College and Noble Park Secondary College.

The documents in each case were denied due to the unreasonable amount of work and time involved, but Dr Chopra applied for reviews or employed other procedural tactics.

In a VCAT ruling handed down on Wednesday, Judge Pamela Jenkins, a senior sessional member, ruled in favour of the department.

She said there was no public interest in Dr Chopra’s FOI applications that generated the identification of more than 4400 pages of documents and 110 back-up tapes that would cost at least $83,000 to process.

Judge Jenkins said Dr Chopra had a history of belligerent and abusive behaviour towards FOI staff, and had accused the department of “bad faith” and “taking the scenic route”.

She said he was uncooperative and insisted the expensive, extensive searches “should take no more than a minute or two”.

In denying the applications, Judge Jenkins said: “It is appropriate to record that history as it demonstrates the repetitive and voluminous nature of most of his requests; the aggressive way in which he has behaved toward departmental staff; and his apparent inability to accept assistance or advice as to how the Department’s concerns could be overcome”.

Dr Chopra also took action against Al Siraat College in Epping, alleging he was bullied by six staff members. The application was dismissed in 2020.