both liberal arts and education, but she returned to school and in 1972
completed a Master’s Degree in Education at New Orleans’s Loyola
University; in 1979 she was certified as a school librarian after completing
a program at Nichols State University. After working for one year as an
elementary school librarian, Ms. Mandhare applied for and was given a
job as a librarian at a school serving kindergarten through second grade in
the Lafargue, Louisiana school district, for the 1980–1981 school year.
Ms. Mandhare talks about that year as happy and successful. Her
responsibilities were to oversee the small library, read stories to the
children and introduce them to using the resources, and she enjoyed this
work. Therefore, when in April 1981 she was told that her contract would
not be renewed because of her “heavy accent, speech patterns and
grammar problems,” and in spite of her excellent skills as a librarian, she
was stunned and angry. She investigated her options, and because she
understood that the Civil Rights Act prohibits national origin
discrimination in the workplace, she filed suit. This civil action was
decided in Ms. Mandhare’s favor; the decision was reversed by the U.S.
Court of Appeals in favor of the School Board.
The official published summary of the case indicates that Ms. Mandhare
then met with the Superintendent of Schools and on the advice of her
supervisor requested a transfer to Thibodaux Junior High School, as a
librarian.^21 The School Board refused to reappoint Ms. Mandhare to this
requested new position; testimony revealed that in their private and public
deliberations, Ms. Mandhare’s foreignness and accent had been discussed.
The trial court was very firm in this case: Ms. Mandhare had been
discriminated against, and must prevail. However, the school’s initial
decision that the Plaintiff could not teach young children because of her
“heavy accent and speech patterns and grammar problems [which]
prevented her from effectively communicating with primary school
students” (Mandhare v. W.S. LaFargue Elementary School) was never
questioned. The court took this claim on faith, and instead stated:
Defendant’s contention that its legitimate reason for plaintiff’s
termination or non-appointment was that she had a communication
problem because of her accent which prevented her from effectively
communicating with primary school students is a feigned contention.
Plaintiff was not being considered for a position which would require