The president of student government who was known to his classmates as “Mr. Lee High” filed suit Tuesday seeking to reverse his ejection from the popular Baton Rouge magnet school and allow him to graduate in May with the Class of 2019.

The student, Assaad Mawas Stephens, was expelled after school administrators say they found a knife and evidence of marijuana in his car.

Stephens, called Charlie by most of his Lee High classmates, is also seeking unspecified financial damages for “unjustly being deprived from finishing his senior year in high school and his high school graduation.”

He filed his suit against the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board in the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge. The case has been assigned to State District Judge Michael Caldwell.

Stephens has not attended Lee High since Dec. 6. His expulsion was upheld first at a disciplinary hearing on Dec. 12, then again in a unanimous vote of the School Board on Feb. 21.

Prior to accepting Stephens' case, the board had not heard an appeal of a student expulsion since June 2011.

Gwynn Shamlin, general counsel for the school system, said he had no comment at this time about the lawsuit.

School administrators accused Stephens of two offenses that led to an automatic recommendation for expulsion. They say they found evidence of marijuana in a search of his car, as well as a 2¾-inch-long knife. Knives that are 2 inches or longer are prohibited on campus.

Stephens’s Baton Rouge attorney William E. LeBlanc argues in the suit that Lee High officials “had no probable cause or reasonable suspicion to search” either his person or his car. As a result, the teenager was “denied his fundamental right to privacy and his Constitutional protections from unreasonable search and seizure.”


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The lawsuit also asserts the school system erred in other ways:

  • Failed to provide written notification of the expulsion hearing via certified mail as called for in the student handbook.
  • Failed to notify Stephens of his “right to view and copy all evidence” in advance of the Dec. 12 disciplinary hearing.
  • Failed to give Stephens an opportunity to cross-examine the school's witnesses at the disciplinary hearing.

Stephens made the same arguments to the School Board on Feb. 21 to no avail.

School Board members wanted to know what was in Stephen’s car and why he didn’t make more forceful denials that the drugs found were not his.

Stephens acknowledged the knife — his father told the School Board the knife was actually his and that it came from a First Aid kit. Stephen has not admitted to the marijuana, though, saying he didn’t know what was found in the car.

“I was speaking of the marijuana that (Assistant Principal Glen) Blankenship accused me of having,” Stephens told the School Board.

Stephens said he was one of four students who had their cars searched on Thursday, Dec. 6, and were quickly expelled because of what was found during those searches. The hearing officer later overturned two of those four expulsions.

The searches grew out of the investigation of another student who was allegedly seen openly vaping in a classroom on Dec. 6; that student denied the allegation, was searched and nothing was found on him.

School officials, however, say they reviewed video and noticed that earlier in the day that student walked into a bathroom, and that four other students, including Stephens, were in the bathroom with him for “a good period of time,” according to one administrator’s statement. The school then summoned the four students to the office for questioning.

Once in the office, administrators had the students empty their pockets and searched their backpacks.

In Stephens’ backpack, they found what one administrator described as “pieces that are used for vaping.” Stephens said they were empty pods for a JUUL e-cigarette he bought after his 18th birthday, the legal age to vape in Louisiana.

Nevertheless, that discovery prompted school administrators to search his car as well.

In his lawsuit, LeBlanc highlights discrepancies in the official account.

For instance, administrator Brian Seals said in a written statement that he figured out which students to question by reviewing footage from security cameras, “but during the appeal hearing Mr. Seals testified that he personally witnessed the students leaving the bathroom together.”

Follow Charles Lussier on Twitter, @Charles_Lussier.