NAACP responds to lawsuit

Thursday, January 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Attorneys for the Oklahoma City NAACP chapter have filed a response to a November defamation lawsuit brought by a high school principal who took issue with statements she says the local organization made about her. Lawyers said a petition targeting Douglass High School principal Sally Cole was protected by the First Amendment, and that statements in it were not made in malice and were substantially true.

The document is the first official word from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People about the lawsuit. "I have always thought we did nothing wrong in our actions and I appreciate having the attorneys from our national office to back us up," Roosevelt Milton, Oklahoma City NAACP chapter president said.

The petition in question was circulated last fall by NAACP members and presented to the Oklahoma City School Board. It sought an investigation of allegations that Cole used profanity in front of students, falsified grades, carried a concealed weapon, mismanaged funds and was hostile to parents.

In November, Ms. Cole sued Milton, other local NAACP officers and the organization's national office, saying the petition and subsequent statements to the media were false and caused her emotional distress and financial losses. Ms. Cole's attorney said the NAACP's statements crossed the line of responsible speech.

An investigation of the petition found that some of its 681 signatures were false or contained inaccurate addresses. Milton has said the petition was not an official NAACP document, and that the local NAACP was simply supporting the efforts of a group of Douglass High School parents who were concerned about problems at the predominately black school. Ms. Cole's lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for emotional distress and for harm to her professional counseling business.