Two Army veterans have sued Atlanta Public Schools for alleged retaliatory measures after filing charges U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) related to the district’s Junior ROTC program.
First Sgt. (Ret.) Dave O’Garro and Capt. (Ret.) Maurice Bonner filed the complaint Aug. 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, against the Atlanta Independent School System, which does business as Atlanta Public Schools (APS). The suit also names South Atlanta High School Principal Phillip Braziel, Director of Army Instruction Dr. Mona Venning, and Deputy Director of Army Instruction Sgt. Maj. James Harris.
The legal complaint, obtained by Military.com, alleges that the school district and other named individuals committed “a sustained campaign of retaliation” against O’Garro and Bonner, both male Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) instructors at South Atlanta High School who opposed the disparate treatment of male employees as compared with their female colleague Sgt. 1st Class Marquita Hadley.
The plaintiffs assert claims not limited to just retaliation and sex discrimination, but “factually unsupported investigative findings”
were transmitted through the JROTC and United States Army Cadet Command (USACC) “to trigger the withdrawal of plaintiffs’ JROTC—using the Army as the instrument of a retaliatory campaign that APS set in motion.”
What Led to the Lawsuit’s Filing
The veterans’ attorney, Arnold Lizana, told Military.com that he got involved in the case due to a fair dismissal hearing.
On March 10 and 24 of this year, an independent three-member tribunal presided over the allegations made by the two plaintiffs. It found that APS had not proven its charges against O’Garro.
On May 4, the APS Board of Education adopted the tribunal’s findings in full and rejected the allegations. The district offered both instructors new contracts to resume working during the current academic year.
But according to the federal complaint, the district took no step to withdraw or correct the referral it had already sent to the U.S. Army Cadet Command, alleging that when the USACC withdrew both instructors’ JROTC certifications on June 4 based on the same allegations rejected by the tribunal, the district moved to replace the instructors and claimed it had no hand in the career-ending result.
“It got to this point because of a series of adverse actions that the Atlanta Public Schools took against these two instructors,” Lizana said, alleging that the two individuals were disciplined “on standards that were different from their female colleague.”
The pair also submitted EEOC and internal complaints. Lizana said that attempts to”short-circuit” the legal process led to a referral to the Army to have O’Garro and Bonner decertified.
“If you’re not certified as an ROTC instructor, you can’t work as an ROTC instructor,” he said. “So, they did that as a bit of insurance just in case they lost at the tribunal—and they did lose.
“And then they refused to withdraw their referral to the Army, which made a decision to decertify my clients based on the misinformation that was forwarded from APS after the hearing, where they lost and the tribunal rejected the allegations.”
Lizana said the district purportedly told his clients that they were going to talk to the service and “work this out, but they never did.”
“They basically ended up placing my clients on permanent leave or unpaid,” he added. “They’re on paid leave, but they’re not working, and then they replace them. They’ve sort of basically sidelined my clients and ended their ROTC careers, but with this referral that they refused to withdraw.”
O’Garro has been a JROTC instructor at South Atlanta High School since 2010, and Bonner since 2023. Both are Georgia residents.
Atlanta Schools, Army Respond to Lawsuit
Jonathan Sheffield, a spokesperson for APS, told Military.com that the district cannot comment on the specifics of active complaints or pending litigation. He mentioned how both O’Garro and Bonner remained employed by APS.
“APS is committed to maintaining a professional, equitable and respectful workplace for all employees and ensuring that our students have instructors who are fully qualified and certified,” Sheffield said. “The district takes allegations of discrimination and retaliation seriously and follows established processes for reviewing and addressing such concerns.”
Ian Ives, a spokesperson for USACC, told Military.com they are aware of the lawsuit—claiming that the situation is where it is currently due to reports passed along from the district to USACC.
“South Atlanta High School sent a report on the two instructors in the 2025–26 school year as required by the school’s agreement with the Army JROTC Program,” Ives said. “After review of the report, USACC proceeded with the decertification process. Army JROTC instructors are employees of the school district they work at and are held to the standards and rules set forth by the school.
“The Army serves as a certifying body and initiates decertification procedures as appropriate.”
Other Allegations and What Plaintiffs Seek
The lawsuit alleges that both O’Garro and Bonner raised internal complaints about how discipline was administered in the JROTC program, leading to both filing charges with the EEOC in late September 2025.
Two of Captain Bonner’s internal complaints were substantiated by the district’s own investigators, the lawsuit alleges, though no corrective action followed.
The lawsuit also alleges that after the instructors filed those EEOC charges, district officials retaliated by referring contested disciplinary allegations through the JROTC chain of command to the U.S. Army. That is claimed to have ignited a process leading to both individuals’ credentials being revoked.
“They were around the same time expressing concerns regarding the same female colleague, and then they were experiencing various instances of retaliatory adverse actions for raising concerns about this female colleague,” Lizana said. “The concern was that they were being held to a different standard than she was. So, she was allowed to do things that were violative of policy.”
He said individuals and the broader district “were nitpicking at my clients about things that weren’t even true.”
Lizana pointed to one specific quote within the complaint. On Oct. 21, 2025, or 21 days after O’Garro filed his EEOC charge, Principal Braziel summoned him to a meeting and allegedly stated: “If it was up to me, I would get rid of you” in addition to, “I tried to get rid of you, but they told me I couldn’t.”
He purportedly admitted that he was receiving guidance on how to handle the JROTC instructors from defendants Harris and
Venning—the officials O’Garro had named as EEOC respondents.
“The hostility was pretty clear at that point,” Lizana said. “What I expect to come out in discovery is we have a transcript from the entire fair dismissal hearing, where there are a good amount of admissions made on part of APS—that they knew that my clients had filed complaints with the EEOC prior to the adverse actions they took against them.
“Of course, they denied that it was retaliatory, but the timing shows that it certainly was, and the animosity that they expressed towards my clients certainly supports that it was.”
Lizana, who has not yet discussed the case with APS or other defendants about a potential resolution, said he’s described this as a multi-million-dollar lawsuit due to the financial damages and other claims made within the complaint.
“We said it’s a multi-billion-dollar suit because we do think it is, and after discovery, we’ll be in a better position to say exactly what that amount will be,” he said, adding that the case showcases “a pretty egregious situation.”
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