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Racism In School Districts

How The Court Could Decide

Sarah Adams

College of Southern Nevada

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Racism and sexism is an ongoing problem within our society, but more specifically, our

school system and the question has often been raised about how the situation is being handled.

While there are rules and regulations as well as other guidelines employees of a school district

must follow, sometimes people are still subject to voice their views regardless of what they are

or aren’t allowed to say. In a course case regarding teachers’ rights and responsibilities, both

administrators that held the position of being the principal, Freddie Watts, and assistant principal,

Jimmy Brothers, are African American and were assigned to a predominantly black high school.

Among many of the teachers at their high school, Ann Griffin, being a white tenured teacher,

was having a heated conversation with two other administrators and while they were taking, Ms.

Griffin voice how she “hated all black folks.” Word got around about what she had said and

many of her colleagues, both black and white, had negative feelings. Due to her words, the

principal felt that a dismissal should be recommended because of the growing concerns about

Ms. Griffin’s ability to teach her students fairly, her judgement, as well as her competency.

Ms. Griffin’s words hurt many and because of that, those she hurt feel that she should pay

the consequences. The most obvious argument is that Ms. Griffin was being an incompetent

teacher when it came to her effectiveness to work with her colleagues, supervisors, and parents.

If she was saying that kind of thing about her supervisors, then one can only imagine what kinds

of things she could be saying about her students. Jon Everhart, a teacher in the Prince George

County, filed a lawsuit against the school board due to continuous discrimination. The gym

teacher at the time was saying all kinds of racial comments that were offensive to many of the

students and teachers such as “the only reason why a white man teaches in P.G. County is that

they can’t get a job elsewhere.” When this same teacher became principal of the school in 2007,
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Everhart himself was confronted with racism as this newly appointed principal called him “poor

white trash” and “white bitch.” Everhart sued later in November of 2010 and a federal court

district judge brought in the Title Vl of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This clearly states that it

“prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and

activities receiving federal financial assistance,” yet racism was happening among the teachers,

staff, and administrators at their school. Even though the case led to Everhart’s termination and

revocation of his teaching certificate, he still won the case, proving that racism shouldn’t be

allowed to happen at all in schools.

In another court case, Jennifer O’Brian was removed from her tenured position as a

teacher due to her misconduct. Ms. O’Brian was teaching a group of first graders that were all

black of Latino and the teacher had posted a comment on her Facebook page saying that “I’m not

a teacher-I’m a warden for the future criminals!” Although upon further investigation it was

found that she had been frustrated from her students hitting each other and stealing items around

the classroom, it did not give her the right to post her feelings like that on social media. Ms.

O’Brian argued that her views and feelings were protected by the First Amendment rights, but

that was taken into little consideration in court. The judge pointed out that because of her

outburst on social media, she made trying to communicate with the parents of her students next

to impossible. The teacher’s removal of position was in fact handled correctly due to the fact that

her actions could be seen as unprofessional conduct. In this particular instance, the nexus

between the teacher’s personal conduct and job performance was broken. The same could be said

for Ms. Griffin’s case because suddenly, her behavior became very negative.

Given the scenario, some may argue the decisions affecting Ann Griffin’s future as well
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as her employment. While what Ms. Griffin did was not smiled upon, her reasons for dismissal

may be inadequate because she was not being incompetent. She was still teaching and

supervising her students, she did not have a lack of of knowledge of the material she was

teaching, her classroom was still disciplined, even though she “hated all black folk,” she was still

working effectively with her colleagues, she was just fine mentally, and she was not willfully

neglecting her duty. Teacher Timothy Olmsted was famous for his racist comments during his

time as a teacher against African American students. He stated that “it was easier to teach rich

white folks that poor black people” and was known to have his black students sit in the back. In

other instances, he went as far as using racial slurs and forced his black students to sit against the

wall with their desks facing the wall. Olmstead ultimately resigned in March, receiving pay all

until October, but before that, he had multiple suspension without pay as well as various written

reprimands. While his harsh words made it hard for students to get a fair and full education, the

state of Minnesota, where Olmsted was teaching during this incident, failed to have proper rules

and regulations to use as guidelines for teacher disciplinary action.

Going back to the original scenario, others could argue the fact that because of this

decision of dismissal that the procedure deep process will hurt Ms. Griffin’s ability to get

employment elsewhere and it will hurt her reputation in the sense that her standings in the

community are now frowned upon. This could prove to be a problem if Ms. Griffin desired to be

a tenured teacher because now her words are prohibiting her from getting any kind of special

achievements. Those achievements might be needed if she wanted to get an education job that

was higher up that being a teacher and now poses the question of how will she get any tenure at

all? Kathy Monteiro was a student in The Temple Union High School District where she was
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denied emotional and mental help after being forced to read racial content in her English class.

The book they were reading had was Monteiro was calling “profane, insulting and racially

derogatory terms” that were used repeatedly. The reading was not a necessary assignment to the

curriculum and many students felt liked it was a form of racism due to the fact that Caucasians

were not spoken of that way in any of their school work. The district court denied Monteiro’s

want for compensatory monetary damages and also denied her request of taking out “literary

works from particular English classes” because of insufficient evidence as well as not following

certain procedures. Ultimately, the court did nothing to support Monteiro’s claims and therefore,

there was nothing more she could do and the teacher would continue to use that book, even

though it created emotional and mental hurt to the students reading it. Monteiro’s teacher should

be brought to court and like Ms. Griffin, a post disciplinary hearing should take place to

determine whether the teacher’s termination should stand or if they should be reinstated is a fair

way to make the final decision.

All in all, if a teacher is being racist toward their colleagues, supervisors, students, and/or

the parents of their students, proper action should be taken to eliminate the problem before it

continues to escalate. Students are there to learn and grow, but they can not do that if their

teacher is being racist because then the teacher isn’t teaching to the best of their ability to make

sure their students are getting the best out of their education. I believe that in Ms. Griffin’s case

that the nexus was definitely broken because of her racism. In other words, being a racist teacher

is not being an appropriate role model for students and though there was no proof in her case, her

racism could be causing damage to the welfare of her students as well as damaging their

emotional and mental health. Ms. Griffin also deliberately violated her employment contract that
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requires her to offer acceptance among her students and to be considerate, which clearly she was

not doing. Therefore, if I were the judge, I would rule that Ms. Griffin be dismissed, suspended,

and allowed to come back with the intention of her being able to overcome her racism and see all

of her students as equals so she could teach them so they could get the most out of their

education.
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Works Cited

Everhart v. Sch. Bd. of Prince George County ​(Fd. Ct. 2014)​The Daily Caller

Monteiro v. The Temple Union High School District ​No. 97-15511 (9th Cir. 1998) ​FindLaw,

For Legal Professionals

St. Paul Public Sch. Dist. v. Olmstead​, MN (MN Sch Dist 2012) ​HuffPost

O’Brian v. Elmwood Park Sch. Dist. ​(Adm. Jd. 2013) ​NJ.com True Jersey