Four students who were disciplined after sharing a petition for “jokes” on social media hoping to restart slavery are suing the Kansas City School District for civil rights violations.
The lawsuit filed on Friday alleges that students at Park Hill South High School said that the September post began as a joke between a mixed-race student and a black student.
After other students laughed at the petition, it was posted on social media, where it received national media coverage.
According to the Associated Press, the mixed-race student was expelled and three other students who commented on the petition were suspended for 180 days. All the students are in the ninth grade and are members of the school football team.
The school district, the principal, members of the Parkhill School District Board of Education, the district superintendent, and the district student services director have all been sued by the student.
The lawsuit alleges that officials violated the students’ First Amendment, due process, and equal protection rights. They hope to restore the situation and delete the incident from their school records, as well as the unnamed actual and punitive damages.
Arthur Benson II, who represents the students, said: “14-year-old children sometimes shoot them unwisely and regret it immediately, but they do not cause harm or cause interference.” But here, it is the adults who overreacted unwisely and caused the chaos, and they are now trying to deprive these boys of their entire ninth grade grades.”
The lawsuit alleges that the school district has tried to improve fairness and equal treatment among the growing black and Hispanic population in recent years, making it difficult for ninth graders to “control themselves between the peer culture that values racial jokes and the school’s adult expectations. “A code that prohibits most forms of racial or ethnic descriptions and jokes on punishable crimes. “
For more reports from the Associated Press, please see below.
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Park Hill School District spokesperson Nicole Kirby said that the school district took appropriate action when it took “swift and decisive action to implement our policy against discrimination, harassment and uncivilized behavior.”
Kirby said the school district will share more details when responding to the lawsuit in court.
The lawsuit alleges that on September 16, when the football team was on the bus heading for a game, the commotion began.
According to the lawsuit, one of the black students and Brazilians was joking with the black students and typed a “petition” on the Change.org website that read “Start slavery again.”
Other students encourage students to post it on social media. When the team came back after the game, 11 people “liked” the petition, and others shared it.
The lawsuit alleges that two of the other three students who commented on the petition were white and the other was white and Asian.
The lawsuit stated that the petition did not cause any disturbance to the school, nor was it intended to be understood literally.
The next day, after the parents complained about the post, the students were interviewed and admitted that they had participated in the petition, but thought it was a joke.
The principal, Kerrie Herren, then sent an email to the families of school students, telling them that he had just learned about “some unacceptable racist comments made by some students on the Internet.”
News media, including the Associated Press, reported the issue, prompting Director Janet Cowherd to notify the entire school district community of “unacceptable racist remarks,” which triggered more news reports.
After the school board of directors held a hearing, the mixed-race student was expelled and the other three students were suspended from school. Black students were not punished.
