Illinois First District Appellate Justice Celia Gamrath
CHICAGO - A white female Chicago Public Schools teacher and high school girls basketball coach should not have been fired by CPS after she used martial arts grappling techniques to restrain a 17-year-old male student who was fighting with other young males inside the gym while her team was still playing, a state appeals panel has ruled.
On June 27, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court overturned the decision by the Chicago Board of Education to dismiss Kimberly Bulow from her teaching position at Infinity Math, Science & Technology High School on Chicago's West Side.
In the ruling, the justices said CPS' decision to fire Bulow over the incident amounted to a decision to punish the teacher for the behavior of an unruly and violent young male, who posed a threat to Bulow's basketball players and everyone else in the gym that day.
The case centered around Bulow's actions to intervene in a fight involving a male student, identified in court documents only as "J.B.," J.B.'s friends and a group of other young male rivals.
According to court documents, Bulow served as a CPS teacher from 2012 to 2022, including working as a tenured special education and English teacher at Infinity from 2014-2020. Bulow also served as a coach for the school's girls' soccer, track and basketball teams.
Bulow is also an amateur mixed martial arts fight trained in jiu-jitsu and wrestling, according to the court documents.
According to court documents, Bulow was known as "a phenomenal teacher whom her students loved and trusted," and who had never before been professionally disciplined.
However, that changed on Jan. 30, 2020. On that date, Bulow was coaching her students in a girls' basketball game in the school's gym, when the fight involving J.B and the other young males spilled from the school's hallway and into the gym.
According to court documents, J.B. and his friends were watching the girls' basketball game when they went into the hallway and encountered "three guys (they) had fought with about two weeks prior."
In the hallway, J.B. and the others exchanged blows, resulting in injuries to J.B.'s forehead and his shirt being completely ripped off his torso.
The fight then spilled into the gym.
According to court documents, security footage from the gym showed the school's athletic director, identified as Michael Zagorski, first attempted to intervene, grabbing J.B. from behind to restrain him. The two struggled and J.B. broke free.
At that point, nearly a minute into the incident, Bulow ran toward the fighters, "waving her arms and pointing at the fighters for about eight seconds," before she "grabs J.B. from behind" and uses various martial arts techniques to bring him to the ground and hold him there, even as the fight continued to rage in the gym.
Throughout the incident, the court documents said footage showed J.B. continued to struggle against Bulow in a bid to escape and reengage his opponents.
J.B. complained to the school about Bulow's restrain, accusing her of using too much force against him, restricting his breathing and injuring him.
Bulow was initially suspended without pay in February 2020.
However, in 2021, CPS moved to fire her, giving sweeping deference to J.B.'s testimony against the teacher, despite what the court said was the teen's clear bias and motivation to see Bulow fired.
Bulow appealed that decision to a hearing officer, who ruled in her favor.
The Chicago Board of Education, however, rejected those findings, and went ahead with plans to fire her.
Bulow then appealed the final administrative action to the First District court.
In the ruling, the justices said CPS' decision was clearly wrong and not in keeping with the actual evidence.
The justices said the evidence showed Bulow was the only CPS staff member who acted appropriately in addressing the threats to her students and others.
"The Board maintains that Bulow should have done nothing, called for security to help, and that Bulow, rather than J.B. and the other fighters, put her team in harm’s way because she failed to escort them to the locker room," the justices wrote.
"However, the locker room was blocked by the fight, and Bulow had no way of contacting security. The fight continued because the staff was not trained to handle the situation and the only security guard on duty was posted five minutes away.
"We cannot countenance the Board’s attempt to shift the blame onto Bulow for J.B.’s inappropriate behavior and characterize it as irremediable per se."
The justices further noted Zagorski - who testified against Bulow during administrative proceedings - was not punished by CPS, despite his failed efforts to restrain J.B. amid the fight and failure to shut down the fight.
"... We find the Board’s decision to discharge Bulow ... was clearly erroneous and we are left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed," the justices wrote.
The justices ordered Bulow reinstated to her former position, with back pay and all privileges she held before she was wrongly disciplined.
The decision was authored by Justice Celia Gamrath. Justices Sanjay T. Tailor and Carl A. Walker concurred in the ruling.
