In a contentious defamation lawsuit between Richmond Public Schools and Maggie Clemmons, the district’s former chief talent officer, a hearing scheduled for Friday morning turned strange when one of the parties was not in court at the appointed time. 

Neither Clemmons nor her lawyer were present in the courtroom on Friday morning when the proceedings were set to begin.

RPS lawyer Ben Rottenborn told Judge Devika E. Davis that he had not received any emails or messages from Richard F. Hawkins III, the lawyer for Clemmons, ahead of the hearing.

Davis’ law clerk called Hawkins twice to no avail, then the judge insisted on moving forward with the hearing. 

In an email later sent to The Richmonder, Hawkins said he was arguing a different matter before a different judge at the same courthouse at the time the hearing was held. 

“Signals got crossed between persons in the two respective courtrooms because Judge Davis mistakenly thought I had left the courthouse when I had not and then proceeded to hear oral argument,” he wrote. 

“In truth, I was just down the hall.”

With the absence of the complainant party, Davis sustained RPS’ arguments, and suggested that the defendants prepare an order explaining what happened. 

Davis said in the courtroom that if Hawkins’ absence was a matter of an emergency, she would be willing to rehear the case.

Hawkins later said in his email that the judge has “invited the plaintiff to file a ‘Motion to Reopen’ the case, so that a complete oral argument can occur,’ even though Davis did not directly dismiss the case.  

“The case is not over,” he said. 

Case background

The morning was initially expected to be about a motion from RPS essentially asking the court to throw out the suit altogether.

Clemmons had originally filed a similar federal lawsuit last year that she moved into Richmond Circuit Court a month later.

The dispute centers around a School Board meeting held in February last year, where 18 employees accused Clemmons of creating a hostile work environment, discriminating against employees of color and violating division policies during public comment.

Clemmons alleges in her complaint that the leaders knew in advance that the employees were planning to defame her, changed policy to allow it, didn’t protect her from the defamation that she said caused harm and conveyed to the public that the allegations were true. 

Former RPS chief talent officer sues School Board members, Kamras over meeting where 18 employees called for her dismissal

The lawsuit alleges that it was “settled policy” of the School Board not to allow complaints against specific employees during public comment.

The RichmonderMichael Phillips

In an email to school leaders sent on Jan. 31, 2025 – prior to the Feb. 4 meeting – former Richmond Education Association President Anne Forrester attached a 58-page letter containing the employees’ complaints. 

“We will be seeing you at the February 4th School Board meeting and hope you can look us in the eyes and show us the respect we have long deserved,” the end of the letter reads. 

Clemmons’ lawyers called the comments “false, malicious and defamatory on their face.” 

The division additionally helped spread the defamation by publishing the meeting online on YouTube, which “is still available for public view.”

Lawyers for Clemmons added that personnel matters are only to be discussed during closed sessions for leaders, a requirement of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

As a result, she asked for more than $6.35 million in damages.

Lawyers for RPS rejected the complaint in a filing uploaded March this year, taking the stance that the case is a matter of First Amendment rights.

Rottenborn, who previously defended actress Amber Heard against Johnny Depp, argued on the grounds of Virginia’s anti-SLAPP laws which are designed in part to protect against baseless lawsuits that could restrict freedom of speech. 

RPS, "cognizant of their constitutional obligation to permit freedom of speech in a public forum, did not prohibit the employees from speaking,” the filing reads. 

How RPS is liable for defamation was a “headscratcher” for Rottenborn, since the employees made the comments and not the school leaders themselves, who are being sued. The letter sent to Board members in advance also “can’t be the basis of defamation,” Rottenborn told the judge.

The allegations made by employees at the Feb. 4 meeting are “opinions,” counsel for RPS said, and FOIA allows school employees to speak on personnel matters during public comment. Rottenborn added during the hearing that FOIA allows officials to discuss the results of personnel matters in closed session. 

It is the division’s standard practice to also live-stream, record and save recordings of the School Board meetings on YouTube, RPS said. State law “affords a fair report privilege,” lawyers wrote, shielding the division from liability for defamation. State FOIA also requires that such meetings are public and open, and “school boards across the Commonwealth often seek to promote open access to their meetings online.”

“You don’t know what they’re going to say,” Rottenborn told the judge at the hearing, adding that RPS could not have predicted what was going to be said in a meeting that was live-streamed. 

RPS also pointed to a legal opinion issued in 2016 by then-Attorney General Mark Herring suggesting that the public is protected in its ability to address school employees by name during public comment periods at school board meetings.

The opinion does not explicitly state whether such protections are extended to employees of the district.

RPS also objected to multiple FOIA requests made by Clemmons’ lawyers, mainly surrounding communications between Board members, Kamras and the employees. Counsel for RPS in turn asked the court to “quash” the plaintiff’s subpoena to hand over the communications, calling the requests “overbroad and unduly burdensome.”

Just a few days before the hearing, lawyers for Clemmons filed a rebuttal to RPS’ objections, essentially asking the court to throw them out. 

“This is not a First amendment or free speech case. Rather, it is a personnel and government case about public actors who knowingly disregarded established policy and barely batted an eye when they got a preview of a forthcoming assault on a colleague to enable a group of disgruntled subordinate employees to make false and defamatory accusations about their boss in the most public way possible,” lawyers wrote.  

But at the hearing, Davis said she had not seen the plaintiffs’ rebuttal. Parties involved in lawsuits are supposed to give courtesy notices to the judge when filing new court documents, even if they are already filed with the court clerk.

Contact Reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin at vifatusin@richmonder.org