Investigation Into San Diego Unified Superintendent Substantiates Allegations of Misconduct Involving Staff

Update: This story has been updated to include information regarding a special closed session board meeting taking place on Friday, Aug. 30.

An investigation launched in May by San Diego Unified officials has substantiated allegations that Superintendent Lamont Jackson engaged in misconduct with female staff, four sources with knowledge of the results told Voice of San Diego. Women who worked for the district made the allegations. Exactly what the misconduct entailed is still unclear.  

District spokesperson Maureen Magee wrote in an email, “The district has no comment at this time.” 

The result comes a little more than three months after Voice revealed district officials had hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into Jackson. The district hired Los Angeles law firm Sanchez & Amador to “represent (San Diego Unified) in sensitive internal investigations,” according to a contract. Language within the contract, however, pointed to the law firm having been hired to conduct a specific investigation for an estimated sum of $100,000. 

Exactly what prompted the investigation was unclear. District officials repeatedly refused to share details in the intervening months. On Tuesday, district spokesperson Maureen Magee wrote in an email that “There is no update on the investigation to share at this time.” 

Despite the assertion, the district’s board had already received the results of the investigation, which it reviewed during a closed board session on Tuesday. The board did not share any details about the investigation during that evening’s public meeting.  

What will happen with Jackson is not certain. But officials on Thursday, posted the agenda to a special closed session meeting taking place on Friday afternoon. The agenda lists only one item: “Public employee discipline/dismissal/release.” 

The Board of Education hired Jackson as the district’s superintendent just two and a half years ago after President Joe Biden appointed former Superintendent Cindy Marten to the post of  the United States Deputy Secretary of Education. San Diego Unified officials landed on Jackson, who has worked in the district for more than three decades, after what the district billed as a national search for Marten’s replacement. Given Jackson served as interim superintendent following Marten’s departure, however, the decision to hire him seemed like a foregone conclusion. 

Despite her lofty new position, Marten’s tenure as superintendent was also marred by scandals surrounding officials’ handling of sexual misconduct claims while she was at the helm. The issues were even raised during her confirmation hearing.  

But the most high-profile rebuke came in a recent report, in which the U.S. Department of Education, which Marten now helps lead, wrote “These failures led to serial perpetration of harassment with insufficient district response, leaving district students vulnerable to the sex discrimination in school.”