MIAMI – A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a teacher at a public Miami preparatory school against her colleagues, Miami-Dade County School Board, and a school board employee.
Judge Roy K. Altman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued an order granting the defendants’ motions to dismiss.
Plaintiff Michele Maupin, a Black female teacher at Young Men’s Preparatory Academy, claims that on June 6, 2022 she formally requested school board administrators at YMPA investigate “discriminatory and retaliatory conduct” on the part of its principal, Pierre Edouard.
YMPA, in Miami, is a public, single-gender preparatory school that serves grades 6-12. It is part of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system.
According to her amended complaint, the school board ignored her complaint and failed to investigate.
In August 2022, Troy Howard, Edouard’s friend and a fellow teacher at YMPA, filed a state court lawsuit for slander per se against Maupin.
Howard, in December 2023, submitted a sworn declaration in the state court defamation act declaring that Maupin accused him of having sexual contact with a YMPA student, having a homosexual relationship with Edouard, and “holding back students academically.”
In October 2025, Maupin – proceeding pro se, or representing herself – sued Howard, Edouard, and the Miami-Dade County School Board. In February, she filed an amended complaint, adding Maria Rojas, the current chairwoman of the school board.
Maupin’s amended complaint brought a total of six counts.
Her first count alleged Edouard’s conduct deprived her of procedural due process, equal protection, and “meaningful access” to the courts, and simultaneously violated the school board’s conflict of interest policy.
The second count alleged Edouard conspired with Howard to obstruct justice by creating and using falsified declarations to influence a state court and harm Maupin, with the intent to deny her equal protection and discourage her from exercising her legal rights.
The third count alleged the board retaliated against Maupin by failing to investigate, permitting ongoing harassment, and tolerating false and defamatory statements, “thereby creating a hostile and retaliatory work environment.”
The fourth count made a claim for racial and gender discrimination, while the fifth count alleged Edouard’s misuse of fabricated evidence to “advance a frivolous lawsuit.”
The last count alleged “negligent supervision and retention,” claiming that the school board’s inaction permitted continued misconduct.
Edouard and Howard filed a motion to dismiss in February, which Maupin opposed. Edouard and Howard filed a reply brief. Then, in May, Rojas and the school board filed their own motion to dismiss, which Maupin opposed.
“Without a generic laundry list of supposed Fourteenth Amendment claims, our Plaintiff offers no facts alleging that the submission of the declaration deprived her of a right protected by § 1983,” Altman wrote in his eight-page order.
“Indeed, Count I says nothing whatsoever about the so-called ‘harm’ the Plaintiff sustained. We therefore find that Count I fails to state a viable claim for relief.”
The judge found that the remaining counts also failed to state viable claims.
“Our Plaintiff appears to allege that Edouard used ‘fabricated evidence’ for two purposes – ‘to mislead the court and destroy the Plaintiff’s reputation.’ Neither purpose seems aimed ‘to exert some form of leverage’ over the Plaintiff … and the Plaintiff says nothing else to suggest that Edouard intended to extract any such leverage,” Altman wrote.
The judge said Maupin’s claim of discrimination included “only four sentences,” and that is “not enough.”
“Our Plaintiff never alleges that she suffered an adverse employment action,” he wrote. “She doesn’t tell us that she was fired or demoted, that her pay was docked, that her leave was cut short, that she was given lesser work responsibilities, or that she suffered any other action that might plausibly qualify as adverse under our precedents.
“She’s thus failed to state a discrimination claim.”
Altman noted that a document filed pro se needs to be “liberally construed” and held to “less stringent standards than formal pleadings” drafted by lawyers.
All six counts of Maupin’s amended complaint “suffer from pleading deficiencies” that the court “cannot overlook,” he wrote.
In turn, the judge gave Maupin “one more chance” to amend her complaint to plead additional facts that “might avoid the obstacles” he highlighted in his order.
