A new lawsuit is calling out a high school math teacher in a Pennsylvania school district with a history of alleged racial discrimination.
In a federal lawsuit filed on Jan. 24, two brothers who are students at Cumberland Valley School District in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, outline several incidents that they claim demonstrate the district’s racial discrimination, the Miami Herald reported. Among these incidents is an allegation that a math teacher held up a photo of a monkey in class and compared it to two Black students, including one of the brothers involved in the lawsuit.
“It was such an emotional reaction that he had to be compared to a picture of a monkey that that kind of … really started his reaction toward the school district,” the student’s attorney, Nicholas Miller, said.
Other incidents outlined in the lawsuit include the older brother allegedly being moved to the front of the bus on his first day of school so he, along with other Black students, could be monitored. Later in the school year, a bus driver allegedly told the student’s white girlfriend that she was “too good to be with someone like him” because of his race.
The student, who has a learning disability, was repeatedly singled out because of his race, causing his frustration with teachers, administrators, and fellow students to intensify. According to the lawsuit, the discrimination worsened to the point where his younger brother was also targeted.
The student’s frustrations escalated after he was unable to receive the necessary support for his learning disability in the classroom, according to the lawsuit. Instead of getting help, he was labeled an “angry Black youth,” while white students were provided the learning support they needed, the complaint states.
The lack of support forced the students to repeat classes while white students were able to advance.
“The fact that somebody can be labeled as that without looking at the environment, it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Miller said.
Other alleged incidents include the student being suspended after confronting a white student who threatened the boy in a text message that showed the white student holding a gun. The following year, the teen got into another dispute with a white student and was placed in an “illegal and criminal restraint hold,” the lawsuit said.
The student’s brother was also targeted and experienced his own instances of discrimination, according to the lawsuit. As a result of their treatment at the school, the two boys feel deprived of their right to free speech and fear retaliation, along with other emotional distress, the lawsuit claims.
This is the second racial discrimination lawsuit filed against the school district in under three months. In November, a lawsuit accused the district of fostering racial discrimination against a Black cheerleader, whose parents were allegedly chased and threatened by a school board member and a family member of the head cheerleading coach after raising the issue with the school board.
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