Racial profiling in middle school my daughter is 12

[lavenderskyy]

My daughter attends an Illinois suburban middle school. On yesterday while in science class she is summoned to the principals office. She is met by the principal who is white and the Black vice principal. She is then basically interrogated. She is told that a fourth grader from another school reported that an African American girl had been bullying a fourth grader. She was asked is it you? Of course she denied this because she didnÂ’t. She was then asked if she knows of other black girls it could be? As our daughter poured with tears telling us this we steamed with anger. You summoned my daughter from class to your office for no other reason,racially profiled her and stereotyped her for no just cause other than she fit the description, solely because of the color of her skin? She was not specifically identified by anyone neither was any other girl. I guess the school decided to march every black girl in to the principals office to question them? No one even knows if this bully lives or attends school in the area. since there are so few African Americans in the middle school. They decided to march every black girl into the office and interrogate them until you get a bulls eye at expense of them all!! My daughter is an honor student. And Infact has been bullied since kindergarten on the watch list for being bullied herself. Just last year 3 kids were suspended for bullying her, not African Americans . I have a serious concern. About African American girls being called to the principals office for no reason other than being black. If my daughter was being bullied by a white girl with no specific identification would they march every white girl to the office. I hope not. What are my legal rights

 

[CdwJava]

First, you really don't know what information the school might have on who might have been engaged in the bullying. Second, under the circumstances, their action may well have been reasonable (depending on factors that you and I are not aware of). The school is not at all likely to provide you with specific details of an incident involving another student. They may well have been overly broad in their inquiry, but this may have just as easily been a solid approach to trying to resolve the bullying of another student.

Your "legal rights" in such a circumstance are to complain to the school administration, maybe even the school board, if you feel that your daughter was unduly set upon during this investigation. You can also choose to seek to have your child transferred to another school.

What is it you want to accomplish? If you want to convey your displeasure, that should be easy to do.

 

[Zigner]

If the victim had stated it was an Asian student, and they pulled out an Asian student for questioning, would you be complaining? How about a Pacific Islander? Native American? Caucasian?

How about a red-headed child? Blonde? Brunette?


The color of one's skin is an identifying characteristic, as are their other physical attributes.

 

[xylene]

Having been bullied does not immunize someone from being a bully.

Where you there, during this interrogation?

Do you know any side of this other that your daughter retelling the incident?

Have you talked to the principal and vice pricipal? Anyone higher up the school administration chain? (the school and or district superintendent, a vice president or president, an ombudsman, I don't know how your school is organized.)

 

[justalayman]

since there are so few African Americans in the middle school

If there are so few black students then their odds are fair that they will ask the child involved in short order.


what happened here isn’t even profiling.

Profiling definition, the use of personal characteristics or behavior patterns to make generalizations about a person, as in gender profiling.


The school was simply acting on a report where some evidence allowed them to narrow the list of possible suspects. It would be no different than asking all kids that wear a red hat if the aggressor was reported to have been wearing a red hat. If the report didnt specify race and they interviewed only the black students, then that would be profiling. They simply used the facts they had to minimize the students they asked if they were involved.

 

[xylene]

I'm going to make my honest suggestion

Stay mad. It is your honest reaction. I am NOT trying to talk you out of being mad. Your daughter came home upset, over something that seems unfair with a racial overtone.


What I AM going to suggest is, talk to the school officials BEFORE you tell them how hoping mad you are and before you make it about race. Not with the eye of them talking you out of it, but so you can gather information. Because if you go in angry talking about lawyers, they will clam up and circle the wagons so damn fast and you will get no honest info without prying it out.

 

[xylene]

It would be no different than asking all kids that wear a red hat if the aggressor was reported to have been wearing a red hat.

Don't get all reductionist here. There isn't a massive legacy of systematic and institutionalized discrimination against "the kid in the red hat"

I think why a report of "that black kid", from another school district no less led to a 4th grade dragnet is a question that is beyond fair.*

*cavaet - the exact nature of this bullying incident matters.

 

[justalayman]

Don't get all reductionist here. There isn't a massive legacy of systematic and institutionalized discrimination against "the kid in the red hat"

I think why a report of "that black kid", from another school district no less led to a 4th grade dragnet is a question that is beyond fair.*

*cavaet - the exact nature of this bullying incident matters.

We are obviously not privy to all the information available and, as human nature drives, the facts presented are most likely presented in a light most favorable to the op.

While I disagree with unjust discrimination (there are a lot of times there is absolutely nothing wrong with discrimination) even given the fact set we have been, the investigation doesn’t appear to be racially motivated* nor unlawfully discriminatory. The school acted on the facts they were presented. I give the school some credit that there was some reason to believe it was a girl from their school.


* and before you argue it was racially motivated, understand the girls questioned were questioned not simply because they are black but because the culprit is black. That’s the differeence between profiling and improper discriminating and investigating base on a known fact set. After all, wouldn’t it be rediculous to ask the white girls if they were the bully given it was reported the girl is black?

 

[xylene]

We are obviously not privy to all the information available and, as human nature drives, the facts presented are most likely presented in a light most favorable to the op.

While I disagree with unjust discrimination (there are a lot of times there is absolutely nothing wrong with discrimination) even given the fact set we have been, the investigation doesn’t appear to be racially motivated* nor unlawfully discriminatory. The school acted on the facts they were presented. I give the school some credit that there was some reason to believe it was a girl from their school.


* and before you argue it was racially motivated, understand the girls questioned were questioned not simply because they are black but because the culprit is black. That’s the differeence between profiling and improper discriminating and investigating base on a known fact set. After all, wouldn’t it be rediculous to ask the white girls if they were the bully given it was reported the girl is black?

I haven't argued anything. I've advised the OP the gather facts before telling the district they are angry and want to sue.

I'm open to the possibility to the that something racist to place. Because that happens in suburban schools with less than representative populations of non-white students with shocking regularity. I'll leave the giving credit in advance to a broken system to you.

 

[CdwJava]

When I was an SRO, I had to investigate actual crimes (not just "bullying") that involved little more than race, gender, approximate age, and perhaps clothing ... which was hardly decisive since the district went to uniforms for grades K-8 except for one middle school. We did what the OP describes: Bring kids in one at a time to ask them about the incident and if they knew anything about it. Likewise, schools investigate incidents much the same way. If they have reason to believe that "a boy in 4th period PE did it," then they will start calling in every boy from 4th period PE - and even others, to see if there is anyone who can provide info.

I am not willing to call this "racial profiling" or even improper absent further information. I suspect that the officials had something more to go on, and that the locale, time, etc., indicated that the perpetrator was a student at that school. If so, what little the OP has written seems pretty standard fare when a school is looking into a crime, or, the hot button issue du jour: bullying. The alternative is to say, "Sorry, nothing we can do."

 

[xylene]

The alternative is to say, "Sorry, nothing we can do."

Maybe, maybe, that would have been the appropriate response compared to singling out an entire underrepresented minortiry.

I don't know if that rises to a violation of the Op's child's civil rights. there are facts not here that would be critical. As presented, not really. But it is terrible school policy and it is insanely stupid how they handled it

why couldn't have handled it as "a girl from a another school said someone who looked like you bullied them. Do you know anything about that?"

not the strongly implied "you're black and btw that's a problem in this school."

ADD: The problem isn't that they had to figure out which black girl might have been a bully - the problem is the insensitivity.

 

[Zigner]

ADD: The problem isn't that they had to figure out which black girl might have been a bully - the problem is the insensitivity.

Insensitivity to the victim, right?

 

[xylene]

Insensitivity to the victim, right?

That fortunate victim with a non white perpertator, unlike the victims with the white perps whom they can't be bothered with out of the sheer undifferentiated mass of whiteness facing the administration.

 

[Zigner]

That fortunate victim with a non white perpertator, unlike the victims with the white perps whom they can't be bothered with out of the sheer undifferentiated mass of whiteness facing the administration.

That makes no sense at all

If the perpetrator was black (or red, or green, or whatever), then they were black (or red, or green, or whatever). Why should ANY group get to yell out "RACISM" (or any other "ism") whenever they are identified by a physical characteristic?

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

Xylene,

Would you be upset if they brought in all the Blonde Blue Eyed children if the perpetrator was described as Blonde and Blue Eyed?