Kanye West and the story of Donda Academy's spectacular spiral

It began, as many things do, with noble intentions.

In the fall of 2020, Kanye West, music impresario, fashion designer, flame thrower and Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband, founded a private school.

The enterprise was conceived in homage to his mother, Donda West, a respected educator (she had chaired the English department at Chicago State University) and arguably the most seminal influence and corrective force in her son’s life until she died of coronary disease and complications following cosmetic surgery in 2007.

Although shrouded in mystery, Yeezy Christian Academy opened with great promise on a sprawling property in Calabasas.

It was the embryonic precursor to what soon became the Donda Academy, which at one point enrolled nearly 100 students. Many received scholarships to attend the $15,000-a-year K-through-12 school, where students wore black Balenciaga uniforms designed by West, and Yeezys, his sneaker brand with Adidas.

West, who had dropped out of college to pursue music, viewed the school as a vehicle to develop the next generation of world leaders through creativity, self-sufficiency and the Gospel, saying it could “actually turn your kids into, like, geniuses.”

Less than four years after first opening its doors, Donda was shuttered, leaving unanswered questions for many of those who attended the school and worked there and a trail of litigation in its wake.

West, Donda and some of his affiliated businesses have faced multiple lawsuits from former employees and educators, alleging they were victims of wrongful termination, a hostile work environment and other claims.

The lawsuits and interviews The Times conducted with nearly a dozen individuals with knowledge of the academy provide a fresh glimpse into the extraordinary dysfunction inside Donda and the erratic behavior of its controversial founder that led to its unraveling.

Former employees alleged in the lawsuits that West compared himself to Hitler, “minus the gas chambers,” refused to allow faculty to teach subjects such as Black history and made lewd comments to them.

Further, West sought to force kids to shave their heads, lock them in cages and make them sit on the floor because he didn’t like chairs, another former staffer alleged in a lawsuit.

The suits — the most recent of which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in November — have renewed attention on the troubling behavior of one of the country’s most influential and controversial artists, who continues to draw headlines for his antisemitic comments and his embrace of conspiracy theories.

In February, West proclaimed himself a Nazi on X (then recanted). Two days later he ran a Super Bowl ad that directed consumers to his Yeezy website, which sold a single white T-shirt with a black swastika for $20.

Chekarey Byers, a former fifth-grade teacher at Donda, sued West and Donda Academy, claiming that she was wrongfully terminated in 2023 after she reported a series of health and safety violations at the school. She and two other former teachers who joined the suit settled last month.

“It was a lot of disorder and chaos,” Byers told The Times before the settlement, echoing claims in her lawsuit. “Donda didn’t really have any structure. They had books that they had bought that were just sitting on shelves. Kids were just playing all day. It was just a free-for-all.”

West declined an interview request through a spokesperson and did not respond to a list of questions. In court filings, he has denied each of the claims made against him by former employees and educators at Donda.

Lofty education goals

The mercurial superstar, who legally changed his name to Ye, was at the peak of his influential career when he founded the school in late 2020. Lucrative deals with Adidas, Gap and others expanded his footprint beyond his music empire.

Although West cycled through stretches of erratic public behavior and mental health challenges — he and his former wife had publicly cited a bipolar diagnosis and he once called slavery a “choice,” had praised Nazis and compared himself to God — he continued to show flashes of creative brilliance.

The rapper largely bankrolled the school himself. Donda received about $10 million in funding between 2021 and 2024, federal tax exemption filings show.

West’s charisma was the school’s undisputed attraction. Donda’s student body drew from his circle of collaborators, friends, celebrities and employees, as well as others outside his camp.

Donda offered a new path for innovative and possibly groundbreaking education.

“The founder had a tremendous amount of vision and commitment,” said one former educator. The school was an “incredible place,” with “tons of potential,” said this person, who declined to be named because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement, as did many staffers and some students’ families.

Money appeared to be no object. At Donda more than $1 million was spent annually on school trips, according to a federal tax filing.

Engineers, music executives and fashion designers were tapped to teach students technology, business and design. The school’s gospel choir performed with West’s Sunday Service, his series of invite-only worship concerts.

In November 2021, West briefly moved the recently renamed Donda Academy from its Calabasas location to the former site of the Stoneridge Preparatory School in Simi Valley.

Although unaccredited, the school was in full swing. While accreditation is not required for private schools, having one signifies that an outside agency has verified the school’s curriculum. Donda had 21 students enrolled during the 2021-22 academic year, according to a private school affidavit filed with the California Department of Education.

The school touted its 10-to-1 student-teacher ratio. The curriculum included (faith) worship, core courses in arts, math and science as well as world languages, visual arts, film and parkour (a French discipline for running obstacles), according to its website. It featured a white dove in flight and the motto: “To be a reflection of God’s glory in the world.”

Donda’s mission was “to illuminate young minds, to turn on people’s critical thinking to emotional intelligence to a sound body, sound mind construct,” said Malik Yusef, a music producer and longtime collaborator of West’s.

The school appeared to become mostly a vector for West’s evolving mindset, with a focus on teaching self-sufficiency skills rather than preparing for college, former associates said.

The school had a hydroponic farm, where students learned to grow their own vegetables. They also took cooking classes and designed their own sneakers, which West sent to Adidas to be manufactured for the students, one former educator said.

Before she was fired, Byers said, West discussed launching courses in archery, hunting and survival skills. “He wanted the kids to literally know how to do everything,” she said.

The school’s basketball team, the Donda Doves, along with the choir, was one of West’s pet projects. The team recruited some of the nation’s top high school players, including point guard Robert Dillingham.

The Doves operated separately from Donda’s core K-through-12 program. Most of the players lived in an apartment complex with chaperones and spent much of their time at a training gym, where they took academic courses online and where NBA players frequently dropped by.

“It was a dream or something out of a movie or a music video,” said Braeden Moore, who relocated from Nashville his senior year to play during the Doves’ first, 2021-22 season. Once when West arrived with his entourage, everyone inside the gym stood up. “It was like church,” recalled Moore, who is now at Oral Roberts University.

That January, the team was featured on the cover of Slam magazine surrounding West. It was captioned: “The Donda Era.”

A churn of educators

Yet, troubling signs began to surface.

Beulah McLoyd, a former principal from Chicago lauded by President Obama, began working with Donda in 2020 and was named the school’s executive director.

“I’m all for supporting students and creating approaches to education and ingenuity, that is what attracted me. I landed there to support that effort,” she told The Times. ”I was given an amazing opportunity by West to do some really great work with the students, that’s why I was even there.”

A year and a half later, McLoyd walked away. She declined to elaborate on her decision to resign beyond saying, “I’m a professional educator. At one point, philosophical differences arose.” She added, “I respected those [differences] and we parted ways.”

Dr. Tamar Andrews, another veteran education consultant, was hired to help build the school’s infrastructure and curriculum.

She too would leave abruptly after less than a year, following one of West’s public antisemitic tirades. The departure was part of a churn of administrators and teachers that contributed to a sense of unpredictability, former teachers said.

Health and safety violations

Isaiah Meadows uprooted his family and moved to Calabasas from North Hollywood in November 2020, when West hired him to be an assistant principal at what was then his Yeezy Christian Academy. In addition to a $165,00 salary for the nine-month school year, West promised Meadows his rent would be paid, he said.

Less than two years after he began working at the school, Meadows said West fired him in retaliation for flagging a raft of health and safety violations: Rain fell through an empty skylight, soaking the floor and leading to a moldy smell for days; the building had exposed telephone and electrical wiring; there was no working hot water for the kids to wash their hands; and the septic tank frequently overflowed, according to the lawsuit he filed.

Three months after Meadows raised these concerns with West and the school’s then-principal, he alleged in his suit, his salary was cut, his rent was no longer paid for and he was demoted to working as a teacher’s assistant and physical education teacher.

In fall 2021, Donda moved from Calabasas to Simi Valley for a period, where, Meadows said in the lawsuit, the school was plagued with similar safety and health issues, including a lack of electricity that caused teachers to conduct lessons using commercial flood lamps powered by a generator to light the classrooms during the first few months there.

After flagging these and other problems, in August 2022, two weeks before the new school term was to start, Meadows was informed that he was being terminated without explanation.

A lawyer representing West, and the three other defendants in the suit, denied “each and every allegation of Meadows complaint,” in a 2023 filing.

In addition to alleged safety problems, former employees asserted in lawsuits and interviews that Donda was a hostile work environment.

When the school moved once again — to an industrial warehouse and offices in Chatsworth that had housed a cosmetics company — Benjamin Deshon Provo, who worked as a security guard at the Simi Valley site, was enlisted to also transport children and teach nutrition classes.

Provo alleged in a wrongful termination lawsuit that West “frequently screamed at and berated Black employees” like himself and regularly expressed “hostility and hatred toward various religious groups.”

The rapper did not allow books about or relating to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and others at the school, according to the suit, filed last April. The case is pending.

Provo, who wears dreadlocks, said West demanded that he and others, including staff and children, shave their heads, telling them, “Alright y’all, it is time for you to shave your heads. I am not messing around,” the lawsuit states.

When Provo refused, he said, he was fired.

A lawyer representing West, Donda Academy and the other defendants in Provo’s suit denied “each and every allegation contained in the complaint,” according to a June 2024 filing.

The private turmoil going on at Donda paralleled months of West’s public displays of odd and troubling behavior, putting him on an increasingly precarious path that would eventually collide with the school.

Public pressure came to a head in March 2022, when West was disinvited from performing at the Grammys, despite receiving five nominations including record of the year, after he posted a racial slur directed at Trevor Noah, the show’s host, on his Instagram account.

Then in September, West canceled his multiyear partnership with Gap that was potentially worth billions. The company said the pair’s visions were “not aligned.”

That October he headed to France for Paris Fashion Week, where he planned a “secret” catwalk showing of his clothing line. Accompanying him were 50 kids from the Donda choir.

West began the show by launching into a long, rambling speech during which he attacked his critics. “I am Ye and everyone knows that I am the leader,” he said, while wearing a T-shirt with “White Lives Matter” written on the back. Right-wing commentator Candace Owens joined him, wearing one too.

Several people walked out, including Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, then an editor at Vogue, who wrote, “Indefensible behavior” on her Instagram.

“It was like a Jenga stick was pulled out,” was how one school educator described the event and its impact on Donda. “The whole thing fell apart.”

After the Paris incident, West lashed out on social media, threatening to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” On the “Drink Champs” podcast, he falsely said that George Floyd’s death was the result of fentanyl use and not because a Minneapolis police officer had knelt on his neck for more than 8 minutes.

A public backlash

The blowback was swift — and costly.

A wave of West’s business and fashion partnerships severed ties, including fashion house Balenciaga, talent agency CAA and eventually Adidas, which was estimated to deliver $100 million to West annually.

Aaron Donald of the Los Angeles Rams and Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics terminated their marketing deals with West’s Donda Sports.

Several prestigious high school basketball tournaments pulled their invitations to Donda. Many of the players began transferring to other programs.

Kimberly Hicks said her son, starting forward Justin Johnson, was one of the last three holdouts to remain on the team, before he left for Hillcrest Prep in Mesa, Ariz. Johnson had joined Donda during his senior year after playing for Miami Dade High School, believing it would help develop him as a player.

“I talked to the coaches, they were all hurt from this, they knew they were going to have a really good team,” Hicks said regarding the school’s turmoil. “It was all because of what Kanye said about the Jews and Jewish people in that manner. He started losing everything and I knew it was going to trickle down to the school and the basketball team.”

Amid the fallout, West got into a spat online with rapper Boosie Badazz, in which he posted an ominous threat on social media saying, “NOW I’M BACK TO SHOOT THE SCHOOL UP.”

Citing the since-deleted X post, R&B singer Keyshia Cole posted on social media that she had removed her 12-year-old son from Donda. A spokesperson for Cole said that she declined to comment.

At the end of October 2022, Donda parents were notified by email that the school was shutting down: “at the discretion of our founder, Donda Academy will close for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year effective immediately.”

But just as quickly as it was closed, Donda reopened within days.

For much of the rest of the year, however, the school appeared to operate in a state of limbo as controversy around West continued.

Around Thanksgiving, West announced he was running for president. He claimed that he asked Donald Trump to be his running mate.

“I see good things about Hitler,” he said days later during a nearly three-hour interview on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars podcast. “I don’t like the word ‘evil’ next to Nazis.”

During this time, Trevor Phillips began working at Donda. He was tasked with others to plan a conversion of one of West’s Calabasas properties into the school and to manage “projects related to the cultivation of cotton and other plants” for Yeezy’s sustainable clothing line, and to “grow food to support the development of a self-sustaining Yeezy community,” according to a lawsuit Phillips filed against West last April.

Phillips said in his complaint that West mistreated Black employees like himself and routinely engaged in antisemitic diatribes during his nine months of employment.

During a December 2022 meeting at the Nobu Hotel in Malibu to discuss the school’s curriculum and horticulture, Phillips alleged that West lay on a bed in the hotel room and simulated that he was masturbating, telling Phillips, “I used to have orgies every day — at least two-to-three girls. And now, man, I can’t even lay down without jacking off.”

Around this time, West traveled to Paris and when he returned he “gloated” to Donda and Yeezy staff that he “spent $2 million of the school budget on his trip,” the suit asserted.

Phillips became increasingly troubled by West’s conduct, including when West told a pair of students he wanted “to shave their heads and that he intended to put a jail at the school — and that they could be locked in cages,” according to the complaint.

“The staff quickly distracted the children,” the suit said, “and escorted them out of the room.”

In a May 2024 court filing, a lawyer representing West, Donda and his businesses denied “each and every allegation” contained in Phillips’ complaint.

Chekarey Byers moved from Ohio where she worked as a juvenile probation officer to teach fifth grade at Donda at the start of 2023. Her mother Cecilia Hailey, a longtime teacher, had been at school since the previous November, first as a substitute and later a third-grade teacher.

At the time, Byers said, Donda had gone through a number of staff departures and her mother told her there was a need for teachers.

“He was doing this cleanse of teachers and that’s why we ended up with a lot of substitutes,” Byers said.

The purges were often the result of infractions of West’s rules, she said. West didn’t want to see artwork on the walls and expected the teachers not to wear makeup or jewelry, she said, echoing claims in her lawsuit.

Hailey and another teacher, Timanii Meeks, joined Byers in her lawsuit against West and Donda for wrongful termination and retaliation.

They alleged that the school did not employ janitorial services or a nurse and that medications were left unsecured. Further, they claimed in the suit that teachers were not required to have mandated child abuse reporting training and they alleged that a host of state regulations concerning education were ignored. When school was in session, they said, the doors were locked from the outside.

The suit said that Donda didn’t have a proper disciplinary system and so multiple instances of verbal and physical bullying were left unaddressed.

The three teachers said they brought their concerns to the principal and others but they were rebuffed and eventually fired without explanation.

A lawyer representing West and other defendants called the teachers’ allegations “false” and “sensational,” saying they “misleadingly depict the Donda Academy as a dystopian institution designed to satisfy Ye’s idiosyncrasies. None of it is true and the allegations do a disservice to the school, its staff, students and their parents who will attest to their positive experience as this case proceeds,” according to a May 2023 court filing.

By the end of 2022, West scrapped plans to convert another Calabasas property to house Donda and instead decided that he would relocate the school to the Cornerstone Church and a nearby house in Northridge.

The church’s pastor, Ronald Nagin, described West as a “unique individual.” He liked the idea of bringing Donda to his church, but it rankled others.

Faithful America, a grassroots Christian social justice group, protested the move. It created a petition imploring Nagin to turn away West and the school. “Together, let’s tell Pastor Nagin that there’s never a place for antisemitism nor any hatred in God’s house,” the group wrote. The petition received over 12,000 signatures.

West pressed on, conducting choir sessions in the church, Nagin said.

In his lawsuit, Phillips described the building to be converted as “dilapidated.” He said that when West was told the project would require planning and building permits, West demanded that Phillips and his team “complete the renovations without any permits.”

Phillips said he registered his concerns with the school’s new project manager, who told him that “this is how Kanye wants to do it.” Shortly after, he said, West removed him and others from the project and demoted them, according to the suit.

Eventually, West abandoned the property. In October 2024 the house that he planned to convert into Donda burned to the ground. The Los Angeles Fire Department concluded after an investigation that the cause of the fire was “undetermined.”

For much of 2023 and 2024, Donda appeared to hover toward collapse, even as West hired another seasoned education consultant to attempt to put the school on a path forward.

The school’s enrollment was down to 36 students from 82 the previous year, according to the school’s filings with government agencies.

The California attorney general’s office sent Donda two delinquency notices in November 2023 and last September, warning that it was in danger of losing its tax exempt charitable status for failing to submit required documents including its tax returns.

The problems multiplied for Donda.

The day after Christmas in 2023, as West was readying the release of “Vultures 1,” a new album in collaboration with the R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign, he posted an apology to the Jewish community on Instagram in Hebrew for his past remarks. “It was not my intention to offend or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.”

In June 2024, Donda Academy closed its doors permanently, according to the California Department of Education.

There was no public announcement.

Some defended the idea of the school and blamed others for its demise.

“The idea of the school was magnificent,” said one former educator. “The execution was chaos.”

Malik Yusef, West’s longtime collaborator, said Donda Academy was “a threat to the traditional school system.”

Yusef said he wasn’t aware of all the allegations against West and acknowledged some may have had merit, while saying others might have a “certain frivolity.” But he contends the school was working at a disadvantage from the start.

“People were rooting for us to lose and the media skewered us as if we did something wrong because a Black man was opening the school,” he said.

Last month, before their cases were scheduled to go to trial in April, former Assistant Principal Meadows and teachers Byers, Meeks and Hailey privately settled their two lawsuits with Donda Academy.

Ron Zambrano, the attorney representing the four plaintiffs, declined to comment on the confidential agreements.

Attorneys for Donda did not respond to a request for comment regarding the settlements.

In February, a judge ordered the rapper to appear for a deposition in the Phillips case by April 30.

Three lawsuits against Donda and West by former employees are pending.

After spending much of the last year abroad, West has returned to the spotlight, albeit a much harsher one. During an overnight rant on X in February, he canceled his previous amends for his antisemitism, saying, “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments.”

He has also announced a new album, “Bully,” saying: “This next album got that antisemitic sound” in a since-deleted post on X.

Like many who supported Donda’s mission, Byers is frustrated that something with such potential imploded so spectacularly.

“I just expected more from him because he built the school in his mother’s honor,” she said. “I just expected him to have more respect for education than what he did.”

Former Times staff writer Nathan Fenno contributed to this report.