Clovis teachers accused of racism, discrimination against Black student, ACLU says

A complaint lodged this week accuses Clovis High School teachers and staff of creating “racially hostile environments” by repeatedly traumatizing a Black student over several years, including suspending him — while not suspending a white student involved in the same incident.

The complaint, dated Tuesday, was penned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and addressed to Clovis Unified School District Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell.

The student’s name was redacted from the copy of the complaint shared with The Fresno Bee by ACLU attorney Abre’ Conner. The student is described in the complaint as a junior at Clovis High.

“Clovis Unified has continued to fail to meet its legal requirements to help Black students succeed in the District,” Conner said in a statement to The Bee. “In a District that has permitted cultural and racial insensitivity in the past, it’s no wonder that our client is struggling.”

In a statement late Wednesday, district spokesperson Kelly Avants told The Bee she couldn’t comment on the complaint’s specific allegations, citing confidentiality protecting the student, who is a minor. However, she confirmed the district plans to “investigate every one of the allegations to better understand the student experiences described in the complaint.”

“The allegations in the complaint sent to us Tuesday on behalf of a student are deeply concerning,” Avants said in the statement. “They are concerning because they don’t reflect our focused efforts, especially over the past three years, to build a system that promotes respect of students’ race and culture, trains employees in building culturally proficient classrooms, reinforces a zero tolerance stance on racism, and works to listen to and give voice to our community of color.”

Black student faced repeated racism in Clovis schools, ACLU says

In the complaint, the ACLU says the student was subjected to multiple racist incidents at the hands of Clovis Unified staff and vendors, beginning in 2017 when he was racially profiled and searched — without explanation — during a bookmobile event.

That incident, which occurred when the student was an eighth-grader, was followed a year later when another teacher repeatedly read aloud the N-word from the novel “Of Mice and Men” during a class assignment. The teacher told students she wouldn’t censor the word because “she did not believe in censorship.”

The student “and the only other Black student in the class sat stunned as they heard the N-Word read again and again,” the complaint says. “... he repeatedly remarked that he felt frozen at the time, unable to cope with the sudden repetition of the most hateful word in the English language.”

The complaint describes it as “a deeply traumatic experience” that “altered” his relationship with the teacher and the school district. Following the incident, the complaint says the student’s “grades plummeted,” and his schoolwork “piled up,” causing him to feel “very isolated and alienated.”

“Due to these discriminatory incidents, (the student) began to feel increasingly anxious and struggled to focus in school starting in the spring of 2019,” the complaint says.

That fall, he was evaluated for a learning disability described in the complaint as “mild deficits in attention processing.” However, the complaint says about a month later, a teacher violated the student’s established support plan by failing to give him adequate time to complete make-up assignments.

This past January, the same teacher informed students they would be reading the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which also contains repeated use of the N-word.

The teacher told the class the N-word appears in the novel repeatedly and that she wouldn’t censor it because, like the student’s prior teacher, she too “did not believe in censorship,” the ACLU complaint says.

The teacher then led a class discussion about whether the N-word should be censored during the reading assignment.

After the student’s parents complained, the teacher promised to assign the class a different book. However, instead of starting the new reading assignment, a few days later, the teacher showed the students the film “Hotel Rwanda,” which contains a scene where the N-word is used.

The teacher “gave no explanation for this change of plans and did not provide any context for why the class was suddenly watching the film.” When class ended, the teacher apologized to the student and said she was “unaware that the N-Word was in the film,” the ACLU complaint says.

Following the incident, the student “grew increasingly disillusioned with Clovis High,” the complaint says.

On Jan. 29, the student and two classmates were caught in a bathroom using a “THC vape pen.”

“He told the teachers that he smoked with the other students to ease his anxiety, which was related to the ongoing racial hostility” with the English teacher. According to the complaint, “teachers rolled their eyes” when he gave his explanation.

The student was suspended, along with one of the students, described in the complaint as Asian American. However, the complaint says, the white student was not suspended. District officials concluded the Black student was responsible for bringing the vape pen on campus, but provided no evidence and failed to interview the student, the complaint says.

“The District’s non-response to our client’s father demonstrates it has not trained its staff to ensure Black students with disabilities can thrive,” Conner said in the statement. “Our client wants to attend and feel welcomed in his classes. Clovis Unified has failed because they aren’t actively trying to meet his basic student needs, even with notice of the issues.”

The ACLU wants the student’s disciplinary records expunged and is also pushing the district to implement a string of changes and staff training sessions to develop a “community of teachers and administrators that are knowledgeable about child development and are culturally competent and sensitive.”

Clovis schools’ history of racist allegations

The ACLU says the student’s treatment is just the latest in a string of racist incidents and actions by Clovis school officials over the last several years.

In 2017, Clovis students faced heavy criticism after a group text message emerged that showed students repeatedly using racist slurs. In 2016 a substitute teacher who had worked in the district for 15 years was disciplined for wearing a Black Lives Matter button and banned from working in Clovis schools. In 2018, a student was called the N-word at a soccer game.

Earlier this summer, a Buchanan High School student posted on social media a series of racist slurs, including repeated use of the N-word, and ended by suggesting white people should protest violence by “hunting and killing” Black people.

In June, a Fresno State NAACP survey current and former Clovis students described “unchecked” racial discrimination and harassment in Clovis schools dating back many years.

This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 8:50 PM.