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Racial profiling in middle school my daughter is 12

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CdwJava

Senior Member
Maybe, maybe, that would have been the appropriate response compared to singling out an entire underrepresented minortiry.
Or, investigating your identified suspect pool.

Have we come so far that we refuse to act on information we have just to avoid hurting feelings? How, then, would the mother of the bullied child have felt. "Oh, sorry, since the bully was black, we are not going to investigate further. Good luck." Sorry, I can't buy that.

That's not to say that the actions were definitely defensible, only that they very well could have been. Since we -0 and almost certainly, mom, as well - lack details, we shall never know.

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."
We do not know how the school treated it. We have a young girl's story to mom, apparently. She did not indicate that she was informed that any of this was fact by a school administrator. But, the general description provided is how they might reasonably treat an investigation into this sort of complaint.

ADD: The problem isn't that they had to figure out which black girl might have been a bully - the problem is the insensitivity.
IF they were insensitive as the OP describes. Most school officials I know tend to be something less than intimidating - and very forgiving - at the grade school level, but, those positions and people in them can vary.
 


HRZ

Senior Member
LAymans aside....I think you are overreacting to the prospect that any profiling was involved .

I think you may be blessed with a school that actually does something about bullying . Far too many schools seem content to turn a blind eye...and in all honesty the system rules give a pack of rights to bad apple that become EXPENSIVE for schools to handle.

Yes, I do mean be supportive of school administrators who try to address bullying and other difficult /complex situations and actually get some results. Its all too easy to do nothing .
 

CdwJava

Senior Member
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. :rolleyes:
You follow up on leads that you can. If your school has 5 people that fit the suspect description (race or otherwise) it's not unreasonable to inquire with those 5 people. If you have 75 that fit the description, that's far too daunting, and the staff time would be far too exorbitant. Much the same with a suspect pool that the police deal with. Something stolen from a locker room where there were 50 kids? Not likely to be much follow-up. Something stolen from a gym bag in a school van where there were 5 kids? Yeah, interview all of them.
 

CdwJava

Senior Member
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?
That depends? Are there four or five such kids? Or 75?

It's about taking reasonable steps to conduct the investigation. If your possible suspect pool is small, there's no excuse not to investigate further.

Schools do this with some frequency - bring in good size groups one at a time, or entire classrooms. If we don't like it, then we can tell schools to stop investigating incidents happening at schools. Bullying is a huge hot button issue these days and gets a lot of press, and a lot of legal attention. Schools are foolish to ignore it. Their end result may be ineffective at times, but to ignore it is to court disaster. And if the school said they opted not to follow up on a lead ONLY because their pool of potential suspects were minorities, how does THAT look?
 

justalayman

Senior Member
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."
Somebody that looks like you? If that isn’t stereotyping I don’t know what is. That statement (and I hope it was truly unintentional on your part) says; ok, since all black people look the same...

Your statement would be the more insensitive statement. It could also lead to a student feeling more like they are being accused, specifically, because, after all, how many people actually look like me?

That would be like publishing a police artists rendition of a suspect. It could be a white kid with a 2 foot Mohawk and one eye missing but based on your interpretation, any white person would look like the suspect. That’s some good work there Lou :rolleyes:

The fact is; it was reported to be a black girl (and who knows what else) so yes, the inquiries should be based on them being black girls and not because the culprit looked like the girl being questioned.
 

PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
That depends? Are there four or five such kids? Or 75?

It's about taking reasonable steps to conduct the investigation. If your possible suspect pool is small, there's no excuse not to investigate further.

Schools do this with some frequency - bring in good size groups one at a time, or entire classrooms. If we don't like it, then we can tell schools to stop investigating incidents happening at schools. Bullying is a huge hot button issue these days and gets a lot of press, and a lot of legal attention. Schools are foolish to ignore it. Their end result may be ineffective at times, but to ignore it is to court disaster. And if the school said they opted not to follow up on a lead ONLY because their pool of potential suspects were minorities, how does THAT look?
Let's assume it is the same number as there are black children at the OP's child school.
 

xylene

Senior Member
Clearly the actual girl, and her parents are upset that the school fingered her because of race, because of blackness.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
Clearly the actual girl, and her parents are upset that the school fingered her because of race, because
They didn’t finger “her” (go back and read the original post) but questioned her, not because she was black but questioned the op’s daughter because the culprit is black. There is a difference.
 

xylene

Senior Member
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?
That would probably be absurd to do over a school disciplinary matter , just like bring in all the children of a non white race. That's singling out children over race.

In this thread I haven't heard any evidence this concerned a crime.

justalayman said:
They didn’t finger “her” (go back and read the original post) but questioned her, not because she was black but questioned the op’s daughter because the culprit is black. There is a difference.
So, the accusation of an elementary school girl, which so specific it is narrowed down only to the race and gender, establishes definitively there EVEN is a culprit?

k.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
That's singling out children over race.
No, it's not - and that's why you are wrong. It's singling out individuals because they match the description of the perpetrator of school bullying.

So, the accusation of an elementary school girl, which so specific it is narrowed down only to the race and gender, establishes definitively there EVEN is a culprit?
I guess if your prior arguments fail, you can fall back to that...
 

PayrollHRGuy

Senior Member
There is a law re the schools anti-bullying program in IL and it does require investigation. If the only information they have is that the bullier goes to the school and is a black female who are they going to investigate other than black females that go to the school?
 

justalayman

Senior Member
That would probably be absurd to do over a school disciplinary matter , just like bring in all the children of a non white race. That's singling out children over race.
In this thread I haven't heard any evidence this concerned a crime.
since bullying is vague, I agree but just the same, pushing a kid around is bullying and that is a crime.



So, the accusation of an elementary school girl, which so specific it is narrowed down only to the race and gender, establishes definitively there EVEN is a culprit?
what? The report of the incident establishes there is a culprit

The fact it involved elementary school aged children or it was reported to be a girl or it was reported it was a black child has absolutely nothing to do with whether the incident took place. The report of the bullying settled the fact there is a culprit.

The fact it was reported to be a black female elementary student aged person (presumably with some reason to believe a student at the school in the case at hand) gives rise to the common sense question of; who should we ask about them possibly being involved.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I believe that xylene is inferring that, for all we know, the victim may have made it all up. The same could be said for a large number of assaults that occur. I suppose we should just stop investigating any assaults that don't have witnesses...I mean, nobody ever beats up on a person when nobody else is around, right?
 

justalayman

Senior Member
I believe that xylene is inferring that, for all we know, the victim may have made it all up. The same could be said for a large number of assaults that occur. I suppose we should just stop investigating any assaults that don't have witnesses...I mean, nobody ever beats up on a person when nobody else is around, right?
A false report is always possible but realistically, does xylene think such a report would be so ambiguous that it wouldnt point to an identifiable party? I suppose the reporter could have had the intent to harass all black girls but more often than not, the intent to harass is directed at a specific person

But while that is always a possibility (as unrealistic as it is), the school has done nothing wrong in accepting the report at face value and investigating, unless xylene wants to suggest the school is complicit in the intent to harass all black girls.

Seems a bit far fetched to me.
 
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