A 15-year-old student in Springfield, Missouri, was suspended for filming her teacher using the n-word, repeatedly, in class.
I kid you not. From The Washington Post:
Mary Walton thought her teacher repeatedly saying a racist slur in class last week was wrong, so the 15-year-old sophomore at Glendale High School in Springfield, Mo., pulled out her phone and started filming, the student’s lawyer said.
...
“Put your phone away,” he told her, according to video reviewed by The Washington Post.
“No,” Mary said.
“Then go to the office,” he responded.
Days later, she was suspended for making the 55-second video, according to her lawyer.
Walton's lawyer makes a compelling case for why the action taken by the school was wrong — that it essentially tells kids to sit back and do nothing when something so egregiously wrong happens.
Via Essence:
[Walton's lawyer Natalie] Hull stated, “This kid did what we want people to do — see something, say something,” continuing, “Now we’re telling students, ‘If you see something, don’t show it, because then you’ll get suspended.’”
But the school district disagrees. On Monday, the school's principal said he was "confident that the district appropriately and promptly handled all matters" relating to the suspension in the right way.
"When students have concerns they should follow the appropriate steps for reporting," Principal Josh Groves said, implying that documenting the actual thing they're concerned with isn't one of those "appropriate steps."
Just...wow.
Importantly, the teacher in question is "no longer employed" by the district. That's great. But what's not so great is punishing the person who brought forward, with evidence, the bad behavior of that teacher in the first place.
That student should be commended, not suspended.
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