A federal civil rights lawsuit filed late last week states the nationally-publicized incident in September involving four Park Hill South High School students accused of launching an online petition to reinstate slavery was mishandled by the district and misrepresented to the public.
The suit was filed Friday in the Western District U.S. District Court against the Park Hill School District, the board of education, superintendent Dr. Jeanette Cowherd and Park Hill South Principal Dr. Kerrie Herren. Assistant superintendent Dr. Josh Colvin is also named in the suit.
In the nearly 30 page document, Kansas City civil rights attorney Arthur Benson II alleges violations of the First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protections laws as well as a failure to provide adequate training and supervision.
The district’s board of education addressed the situation at the Thursday, Sept. 23 meeting.
“This racist incident is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” said superintendent Dr. Jeanette Cowherd at the beginning of the meeting. She read from a prepared statement, outlining the district’s actions since it learned of the petition.
Privacy laws prohibit the district from sharing discipline information, but Cowherd reinforced the district policies that prohibit discrimination and harassment and said “students who violate this policy will be subject to discipline, which may include suspension or expulsion.”
According to court documents, one of the students involved was expelled and three others were suspended for 180 days. Two of the students are white, one Black and Brazilian and one white and Asian.
On Thursday, Sept. 16 the freshman football team was on the way to a game, according to those documents, which set out to establish a pattern of tense race relations in Park Hill, including the bloody Civil War era history of Platte County.
“As they attended summer football camp and school practices, plaintiffs found themselves in a school culture that was infused with frequent casual use of racial and ethnic epithets and slurs; demeaning names were often used both in jest and in earnest; ‘unclean’ hip hop music with frequent epithets and racial slurs was often played loudly in the locker room; friendly banter about racial topics was frequent; school district adults, including coaches, only occasionally asked the ninth graders to ‘watch their language’ but mostly condoned heavily racialized interactions among the members of the ninth grade football team,” the document states.
On that bus ride, a student named Plaintiff A in the suit – who is Black and Brazilian – was joking with a Black student about slavery. The plaintiff wrote a petition on Change.org entitled “Start slavery again” and showed other teammates on the bus. The petition was shared to the team’s SnapChat group and at some point was leaked outside the group.
This set off, according to the complaint, “a fire storm of criticism by adults, many without any affiliation with the school district.”
Plaintiffs allege the district’s reaction made the situation worse, resulting in “an outcry both regional and national that blamed this mostly white suburban school district for again allowing racist behavior to arise in the district.”
The suit alleges the students were following a long pattern of behavior that was previously accepted in the district and the harsh punishment of expulsion and extended suspensions were out of line with previous indiscretions.
“With deep roots in slavery and a decades-long resistance to racial integration, the Park Hill School District with the support of its virtually all white population remained mired in its past with an all white student body until years into this new century and as its black population grew rapidly to 10.9 percent at present, the district struggled, and continues now to struggle, to adapt its educational mission to a diverse and changing enrollment,” it states.
The document outlines Platte County’s Civil War history as well as the more recent efforts to desegregate Kansas City area schools, stating that as recently as 1974 the district stated it would not accept money from the City of Kansas City, if that money would obligate them to integrate.
The suit calls into question the district’s actions and suggests its failure to provide age-appropriate guidance to students as the more pressing issue than the students actions to create a “joke” petition.
District residents and patrons remain divided on the matter. Posts on social media since the filing have voiced either support for the students or support for the district. Others point at continuing patterns of racial inequity in the schools.
The day before the suit was filed, those differences of view were on display at the board of education meeting. District resident Kathy Place commented at the meeting. She did not defend the actions of the teenage boys who started the online petition to reinstate slavery — saying it was a racist act — but she did criticize the administration’s response and the harsh treatment of the boys.
She said the names of the students were broadcast on national outlets (The Citizen did not publish the students’ names), unfairly thrusting the district and the teens into the national media spotlight.
“Hyper focusing on race and equity feeds into racism,” she said, criticizing the district’s response to hire an outside race consultant and to focus on race relations. She said neither she, nor most district residents she knew, were concerned about racism in the schools.
Resident Julie Stutterheim followed up after Place, observing that white people such as Place typically don’t have to worry about racism.
“Are they allowed to get away with anything because they’re just teenage boys with teenage brains?” Stutterheim said.