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Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been sued by an ex-employee who says that the controversial rapper made discriminatory remarks and compared himself to Adolf Hitler while running his Los Angeles-area private school, where he allegedly wanted children to be locked in cages and have shaved heads.
Trevor Phillips filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, accusing Ye of creating a hostile work environment and then retaliating when Phillips spoke up about unsafe work conditions and other issues at Donda Academy.
Representatives for Ye did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
According to suit, Phillips was first hired by the rapper to work on Yeezy, his apparel brand, around November 2022, at a time when multiple businesses were breaking ties with Ye for going on a series of antisemitic tirades in public.
Phillips was then brought on at Donda Academy. In the suit, he says that while working for the school, he heard Ye make various remarks targeting gay and Jewish people, such as: “Yeah I am going for the gays! FIRST the Jews, THEN the gays.”
He also says that he was ordered to do dangerous electrical work at the campus, and that he saw the rapper treating Black members of the school’s staff “considerably worse than white employees.”
Phillips claims he also heard Ye telling two students that “he wanted them to shave their heads and that he intended to put a jail at the school — and that they could be locked in cages.”
When Phillips raised concerns about Ye’s conduct, the suit says the musician “responded mercilessly, with incessant harassment, humiliation, and attempts to both mentally control, and destroy, Phillips.”
The suit includes screenshots of a text message attributed to Ye, where he tells Phillips, “I am on some complete Hitler level stuff,” before adding, “Minus the gas chambers.”
Phillips’ suit says that Ye appeared to fire and rehire him at random, but that he was dismissed for the final time during a Sunday service at the school last May.
During the incident, he claims that Ye confronted him over a garden project and screamed, “I was going to punch you in the face,” in front of dozens of staff members and students.
Phillips is seeking more than $35,000 in damages, according to the complaint.
He is not the first to take legal action related to Ye and Donda Academy. Three former teachers and an ex-assistant principal have also sued, alleging discrimination and wrongful termination.
Their complaints have revealed other strange details about Donda Academy, which allegedly served only sushi at lunchtime and banned chairs from campus.
