Kanye West Allegedly Banned Black History Books, Fed Kids Sushi At Donda Academy: Lawsuit

Kanye West and his Donda Academy are facing a lawsuit from two former teachers at the private Christian school.

Cecilia Hailey and her daughter Chekarey Byers are suing West, the Chatsworth, California, school and its directors for alleged racial discrimination and wrongful termination, according to legal documents seen by Page Six.

The two alleged that they were discriminated against based on their race, had wages illegally withheld and were terminated on March 3 in retaliation for reporting code violations.

The school's current principal Moira Love and West, who is not believed to have a representative at the moment, have not yet responded to the outlet's request for comment as of writing.

Hailey told Page Six that the "Donda" rapper allegedly banned books on Black history from the school, including Mark Bixler's "The Lost Boys of Sudan," which focuses on four victims of the brutal Sudanese conflict.

She claimed that there are now believed to be between just 35 to 40 pupils left at the private school, which costs $15,000 a year and was named after West's late mother Donda.

"Kanye didn't want anything to do with a lot of black history books," she alleged. "There was one book called 'The Lost Boys of Sudan' that was banned because one of the parents got shot in the book. But the kids were reading 'Harry Potter' and there are murders in [those] books."

"Kanye wanted nothing to do with history, I was told," she claimed.

The lawsuit also alleged that the school's students were fed only chef-prepared sushi for lunch.

"There was no breakfast. You had young kids eating raw sushi and cucumber rolls every day," Hailey alleged to the outlet. "A lot of the kids didn't like it and that's all they had. This is not a nutritional meal. There are state guidelines and nobody paid attention. I thought it was not only rude, but cruel."

Hailey, who has been a teacher and administrator for over 25 years, joined the academy in November 2022 when it reopened after a brief shutdown amid the fallout of West's anti-Semitic remarks.

"Kanye would never have sent his own children to Donda, no way ... it was just a luxury daycare," Hailey claimed.

She also alleged that the school's administrators struggled with behavioral issues and disorganization. The students were also allegedly not being taught properly at Donda, which reportedly offers no grading system.

"The kids had so many changes, so many teachers. I was like the fourth or fifth they had in the third grade, and they had had 10 principals in three years," she told the outlet. "It wasn't that the kids were bad, it was that there was so much disruption."

She claimed that the students were not disciplined and that bullying was widespread in the school. In one incident, a fifth-grade student allegedly slapped an eighth-grader in the face and even "bragged" about it, but there was reportedly "no action" taken.

"The teachers recommended the child be expelled, but nothing was done. The explanation was that Kanye wants certain marginalized kids in school, but this was a kid who assaulted people and didn't need to be around other children," Hailey claimed.

Hailey alleged that after she requested to talk to West, the principal warned her she would be fired if she ever did so.

Several staffers left the school in November 2022 in protest over West's erratic behavior and anti-Semitic comments, and among them was highly-regarded education consultant Tamar Andrews, the New York Post reported.

"Staff members of the Jewish faith were lost," Malik Yusef, a friend and collaborator of West's, told the outlet, adding, "Critical thinking is what Donda is about, and I don't think Kanye applied critical thinking."

A number of students also left the school. One parent pulled his basketball-playing son even before West's controversies.

"[The school] was not aggressive on academics and our son's grades were slipping," Abu Askia, father of Jakhi Howard — a top-notch guard slated to graduate in 2024 — told The Post. "So we got him out ... They need to tighten up their curriculum."