Jorea Marple's lawsuit moving to US district court
by Shay Maunz
Daily Mail staff
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The legal dispute over Jorea Marple's ouster as state superintendent has moved to federal court.
Marple filed a lawsuit in circuit court last month, claiming wrongful termination in her November firing by the West Virginia Board of Education. Late last week the board filed to remove the case from that court, moving it to the southern West Virginia District Court for the United States.
The filing contends that, because Marple is claiming her rights were violated under the U.S. Constitution, "a federal question exists which is appropriate for this court to adjudicate."
In the lawsuit, Marple alleges board president Wade Linger engaged in a "covert agenda" to convince the board to replace Marple, violating her due process rights and skirting open meeting laws.
The board voted to fire Marple in a November meeting, shocking many in the education community. Moments later she said she hadn't anticipated the move, and thought it was political. No mention of Marple's position appeared on the agenda for that meeting.
The board called another meeting later in November and again voted to fire Marple after a lengthy closed-door debate. It never said it had done anything wrong, but called the move an attempt to fix any problems others might have perceived with open meeting laws regarding the initial vote.
In response to several Freedom of Information Act requests, the Department of Education released in February email communications between Linger and current Superintendent Jim Phares. Those emails show that Linger asked Phares for his resume in September, months before the board voted to fire Marple.
Linger also told the Daily Mail that he began to think about replacing Marple in June, on the heels of the department's handling of the board's response to an education efficiency audit.
The case was moved to United States District Court Friday, and assigned to Judge Thomas Johnston