ACLU Lawsuit Challenges Racial Discrimination in Alabama School District

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Alabama filed a complaint in a class-action lawsuit charging Monroe County school officials with subjecting African American students at Monroeville Junior High School to the widespread use of racial epithets and slurs, racially motivated discipline and racially segregated classrooms - practices that deny African American students their constitutional right to equal educational opportunities. "Students at Monroeville Junior High are systematically singled out by teachers and administrators for punishment and forced to endure hostile and discriminatory treatment simply because of their race, " said Catherine Kim, staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Project. "Such behavior is a vestige of a tragic past and is simply unacceptable in any contemporary American school setting. " The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama on behalf of nine parents of Monroeville Junior High School (MJHS) students, names as defendants the members of the Monroe County Board of Education, the superintendent of the Monroe County School District and the principal of MJHS. The ACLU and ACLU of Alabama ask the court to certify as a class all African American students who attended MJHS last year, who attend currently and who will attend the school in the future, as well as their parents and guardians. Some of the most egregious allegations in the lawsuit document the use of racial epithets and slurs made by teachers and school officials toward African American students. African American children also are routinely suspended for multiple days at a time for not having their shirts tucked in properly, for not wearing a belt, for wearing the wrong kind of belt, for wearing the wrong color undershirt or simply because a school official does not like the way they are dressed. Caucasian children who commit these same alleged infractions are said to go unpunished. African American children are routinely subject to corporal punishment for infractions as minor as running in the hallways or talking in class. According to parents, white children are virtually never subject to corporal punishment.  "All students have a constitutional right to an educational environment free from racial discrimination, " said Allison Neal, staff attorney with the ACLU of Alabama. "The kind of racially charged environment that exists at MJHS and the discriminatory policies and practices of school officials rob African American students of that right. Not only is that immoral, it is illegal. "  For more information, see www.aclu.org/racialjustice/edu/35433lgl20080521.html.