Maya McFadden Photo
Sophomore Jayla Anderson: Protest "got out of hand."
Students marched on the classroom of an English teacher — and she was subsequently placed on leave — after she allegedly used a racial epithet in a classroom discussion about the use of a racial epithet.
The controversy began at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School last Thursday.
The English teacher was discussing with her class a documentary about James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro.
“A student asked the teacher whether it was appropriate that she, as a white woman, pronounce the full title. The teacher responded that she thought it was necessary to use the word in the context of the title since the movie is in part intended to create awareness about the word and its evolution. The student then asked whether the teacher would use a specific racial epithet if it was in the title of a song. The teacher replied no but repeated the student’s epithet,” Coop Assistant Principal John Nguyen subsequently wrote in a message to the school community.
On Friday, word got around school about the incident and the teacher’s use of the n‑word. Some students grew upset, left their classrooms, and marched into the halls, chanting.
About 50 students took part in the spontaneous protest, according to school system spokesperson Justin Harmon, who was present in the building for part of the protest.
Some of the students marched to the hallway outside the teacher’s room. They chanted outside, calling for her firing.
The above video captures part of that scene.
Sophomore Jayla Anderson said dozens of students left their classrooms and walked out into hallways at two different times Friday: first around 9:30 a.m., then amid a lunch wave at 11 a.m.
While on the fourth floor in her second-period class, Anderson said, she could hear screaming and yelling on a lower level of the building.
Anderson said she decided to stick around for the second protest because it was “more peaceful” than the first.
Anderson said it was a good idea to share student concerns, but she thought the action was unorganized and “got out of hand and lost its meaning.” The events upset her, she said; she thought it would have been more productive if people voiced their opinions about the situation instead of “just standing around.”
“They were making a statement, but no one was really talking about what happened,” she said. “It’s kind of upsetting about how everyone handled it on all ends, the administration and the students.”
Another student said protesters were “bum-rushing into classrooms.”
A member of the school’s senior peer leadership group (who asked not to be named) said the protest was led mostly by underclassmen. She said while some had legitimate concerns about the teacher’s actions, “most of them just wanted to be out of class.”
She described the peer leadership group as a “bind between students and administration.” The group is often tasked with listening to student concerns and bringing them to administration to come up with plans for resolutions.
On Friday the peer leaders connected administrators with students concerned about the incident. “We found the couple of students that had concerns that weren’t met yet, and they spoke with them personally,” the student said.
On an Instagram post asking students how they feel, more than a hundred comments flooded in.
“I go to the school and it could had been approached a different way… yeah she said the n word and its wrong but all this stuff was unnecessary,” wrote one student.
Wrote another: “This is my school!! I’m tired of educating racist on not saying the word, we in 2022 you shoulda known not to say it, now we want her gone no educating needed”
The school has placed the teacher on leave, according to Harmon.
“We appreciate the teacher’s effort to present content in context, though it would have been preferable that she not repeat the word in response to the student’s question. The incident is being investigated by the school administration. We respect our students’ feelings about what happened,” read a statement issued by the school district.
The teacher did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
In response to the assistant principal’s email, Krystal, a senior, said she hopes the school “digs deep” during its investigation and take the the time to educate teachers to respect students’ feelings more.
“It’s bad and it’s disgusting that we’re still dealing with this in 2022,” she said.
“We are all here today feeling all kinds of things. The event is going unaddressed as if it didn’t happen. It was scary!” one teacher wrote to the Independent Monday.
The student peer leaders are planning to arrange another conversation with administrators this week about the incident.