After outbursts, court bans father and son from harassing Chapel Hill superintendent
Read the latest: “Chapel Hill-Carrboro school leader condemns ‘abuse’ after superintendent gets court order”
The leader of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools has obtained a temporary court order to keep a recent high school graduate and his father away from her and school property.
Superintendent Nyah Hamlett secured the order this month after Hunter Klosty and his father, Kevin, made critical and sometimes hostile comments about Hamlett and her administration in public forums and emails over most of the last school year, according to court documents.
“Additionally at a (Feb. 14) school board meeting, (Kevin Klosty) came as his son made public comment, moved to the row/seat closest to me and stared me down, smirked, then clapped loudly,” Hamlett said in her court motion.
The behavior caused her “extreme stress,” she said, and made her fear for her and her family’s safety.
The issue came to a head at East Chapel Hill High School’s June 10 graduation ceremony in the UNC-Chapel Hill Smith Center, where Hunter and Kevin Klosty confronted Hamlett, court documents and a UNC Police report say.
Hunter Klosty, student body vice president, was denied his diploma after swearing at district officials and Hamlett as he walked across the stage over roughly 15 seconds.
“They should all be fired,” Hunter Klosty told some staff members on stage, according to a UNC Police report about the incident. He also swore at school officials standing there and called Principal Jesse Casey “a stupid man,” the report said.
When he reached Hamlett, Klosty pointed his finger in her face and called her a “plagiarizing b****,” the documents say. When Hamlett reached for Klosty’s arm, School board Chairwoman Rani Dasi placed a hand on the superintendent’s back and gestured for Klosty to keep moving, according to a video of the event.
District officials asked UNC Police to remove Hunter Klosty from the event, but in his report, Officer J. David said police didn’t see Hunter or his father Kevin Klosty “exhibit any criminal behavior.” And officers did not want to disrupt the end of the ceremony, the report says.
Hamlett did not name the Klostys by name in her nearly 60-second graduation message, but said she had a message for one classmate and “their” family.
“When you struggle with treating people with dignity and respect, trust and believe, it says a lot more about you than it ever will about the people you’re attempting to tear down,” she said, according to a graduation video.
District policies, plagiarism allegations
Hunter Klosty’s behavior at graduation violated the school district’s code of conduct and required Dasi and others to step in to make sure Hamlett “was and felt safe,” the school board chairwoman said.
School officials had warned UNC Police that the Klostys could pose a “potential situation” due to their vocal “dislike” of Hamlett and other staff, David wrote in his report. So he watched as Hunter Klosty’s father jogged toward Hamlett who was leaving the arena after the ceremony.
Kevin Klosty stopped about 5 feet away and pointed his finger, saying, “the investigation is going to begin,” before also leaving the arena, the report says.
Hamlett filed two motions on June 16 seeking no-contact orders against the pair, and Orange County District Court Judge Sherri Murrell issued a temporary, 10-day order. The order was extended to Aug. 7 after the Klostys requested an in-person hearing.
The emergency order forbids Kevin and Hunter Klosty from stalking or harassing Hamlett, going to any Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools properties and posting about Hamlett on social media.
In her court petition, Hamlett said the Klostys started harassing her in January after The News & Observer published a story about her 2019 dissertation, written for a doctor of education degree from the College of William and Mary. The story documented roughly 35 examples of nearly word-for-word paragraphs and sentences from sources that were sometimes misidentified or not identified at all.
In a blog post made public before the article was published, Hamlett insisted there were no significant irregularities in the document. She said she was having the document reviewed “once more for my own peace of mind,” but did not say by who.
Evidence Hamlett submitted to the court predates January, however. It includes over 140 social media comments and dozens of emails between the Klostys and district staff, with some from September 2022. That’s when Hunter Klosty began criticizing district policies during his student body campaign.
Social media comments and emails also show that Kevin Klosty strongly opposed the district’s decisions to limit sporting events and require face masks last year as the pandemic was winding down, and he criticized how the bus driver shortage was handled.
When he didn’t get a response to his criticisms, Kevin Klosty said he pushed for one via email before Hamlett responded to him on Sept. 15, 2022. District staff “are not required to respond to written or verbal attacks, name calling, etc,” she wrote.
The superintendent, not the school district, requested the no-contact order. Reached by phone on Tuesday, Hamlett referred The N&O to court documents and declined to comment further.
The school board chairwoman declined to comment on Hamlett’s decision to seek the court order, but noted, “the history of America certainly suggests that we don’t want to wait until there is a physical danger that actually happens before we taken action.”
“Particularly as a woman, and as a Black woman, I’ve seen instances where verbal escalations moved rather quickly into fatal violence, and that’s not my intention to wait,” Dasi said, adding that some of the language and the way it was delivered also made her “anxious.”
Family responds to court order
The Klostys said by phone Tuesday they are considering their options for the August hearing.
“What she is accusing us of does not justify even what she’s asking for,” he said. “Anything online was never directed to her personal accounts. We’ve never contacted her personally. I’ve never called her on the phone. I have never threatened this woman with any kind of bodily harm. My son has never — the only thing we’ve done is question her policies and what she was doing to the school district.”
The father and son said the UNC Police description of what happened at graduation was accurate. The younger Klosty said, from his point of view, school and district officials had harassed him about his criticisms of their policies all year.
His attitude on graduation day, Hunter Klosty said, was: “I’m never going to see these people again. I’m never going to interact with them.” So when he reached the stage, he stopped to tell two district employees that he thought they had acted in a professional way, and that they “deserve better jobs.”
Hunter Klosty acknowledged that he told Assistant Principal Jeriel Champion, with whom he had disagreements, to “F*** off” and that he called Casey, the principal, “stupid.” He swore at Hamlett when, he said, she refused to fist-bump him as she had other students.
“And then they freak out, like chickens with no heads. Eventually, they pull my diploma,” Hunter Klosty said.
Most graduates received their diplomas right after the ceremony. Hunter Klosty got his diploma in the mail June 14, after district spokesman Andy Jenks warned his father in a June 12 email not to come to the school district office, court documents said.
Personal vs. professional attacks
Hunter Klosty and his father said school and district administrators have taken as personal attacks their comments criticizing district policies and Hamlett and staff members she has hired, including Casey and Champion.
At the school board’s Feb. 14 meeting, Hunter Klosty listed their concerns, including student fees and district spending they disagreed with, such as the purchase of a digital hall pass system that tracks students, a bus driver shortage, too little support for teachers, and questions about the superintendent’s dissertation.
“You will stand here and moan about equity, but when given the chance to actually change things, you vacillate and do nothing,” he told the board.
His family was subsequently called racist and bullied on social media after someone created an Instagram account, “Hunter for Impeachment,” which was later taken down, Hunter Klosty said. His father’s place of work and LinkedIn profile was posted online, and his sister’s photo was posted alongside an accusation that she cheated on math tests, he said.
“During all of this, instead of working with my son, they would literally dig their heels,” and try to silence him by telling friends and teachers to not support his public positions, Kevin Klosty alleged, stating that he has evidence to back up his allegations and could share it after the August court hearing.
“They never punished him while all this was going on. They punished him at the end,” Kevin Klosty said.
Hamlett told the school board about her petition for the no-contact order, Dasi said Tuesday. She called the Klostys’ ongoing criticism of Hamlett and other district officials a “terrible sign of the times that people feel free to harass people who are working for the betterment of the community.”
“I feel a lot of sadness for the young man and what he’s been taught in his home to make him seem so full of hate and rage at a time when a lot of people are spending that time learning,” Dasi said.
The board will do whatever it can to help Hamlett, Dasi said. They also will find a way for the Klosty family to participate in their other student’s last two years in the district if the order becomes permanent, she said.
This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 9:59 AM with the headline "After outbursts, court bans father and son from harassing Chapel Hill superintendent."
