3 Marion County Board Of Ed Members Sued For Sexual Discrimination

This is a developing story and may be updated.

Marion County Schools Superintendent Donna Heston and Human Resources administrative assistant Kristin DeVaul have sued three members of the Marion County Board of Education, in their personal and official capacity, for sexual discrimination.  

The suits allege that three board members, Donna Costello, Kevin Rogers and James Saunders, have “seized upon and spread a false accusation” that Heston and DeVaul were engaged in an intimate relationship and was the reason for DeVaul’s position, even though she has worked for the board for 18 years, and Heston only became the superintendent in 2021.  

Heston’s suit alleges she was interrogated about her private life, and that the three board members surveilled her social media, demanded that she recuse herself, and then declined to renew her contract notwithstanding. After learning that she had asserted her rights, the board only extended her contract by the minimum one-year term while continuing to subject her to gender-based hostility. 

A statement from Ryan Umina, the attorney representing both women, said, in part: “The complaints are built on the board members’ own recorded statements, their own text messages, the written statement of a sitting Board member, and the board’s own official minutes. Asked on tape whether male administrators who traveled and stayed together were involved with each other, a board member answered, ‘Well, that’s not my business.’ The private lives of two women, apparently, were.”

Allegations 

According to Heston’s suit, “On or about Jan. 29, 2023, Ian Harned, an assistant principal then subject to pending disciplinary action, sent an email directly to the members of the Board falsely alleging that Ms. DeVaul had solicited him for a sexual ‘threesome’ — a fabrication that, by its nature, implicated both Ms. DeVaul and Dr. Heston — and had promised him a principal’s position in exchange (the ‘Harned Allegations’). The Harned Allegations were fabricated in their entirety. From their inception, the Harned Allegations sexualized the professional relationship between the two women and targeted them together.” 

The suit goes on to allege that “the board never investigated, repudiated or discredited the Harned Allegations, and no Board member defended Ms. DeVaul. Instead, the false sexual narrative supplied ammunition for the discriminatory campaign that followed.” 

Both suits were filed July 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia. They have both been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Kleeh.  

Both plaintiffs have demanded a trial by jury. No dates have been set in the matter.  

West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to all three board members and the Marion County Board of Education by email, but did not receive a reply by deadline.