MONTPELIER — A complaint to the Vermont Human Rights Commission seeks an investigation into incidents of racism and bullying against a Black student at Twin Valley Middle High School in Whitingham.
The complaint, filed by the Vermont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union Tuesday, says that the student was harassed racially by a group of students during the 2020 to 2021 school year with racist epithets and white supremacy salutes, and that school officials “did nothing meaningful” to stop it.
The complaint states that teachers, in addition to the student and the student’s mother, asked school officials to intervene, but that Principal Anna Roth largely ignored the situation and said the repeated Nazi salute was “’just something the kids did here.’”
“Principal Roth failed to take any actual, tangible or meaningful steps to protect (the student),” the complaint states.
The student was forced to transfer only weeks before the end of school to Brattleboro Union High School, and the family has since moved across the country, the complaint says.
The student suffered physically and emotionally from the bullying and harassment, according to the suit, and dropped out of sports. The student’s grades suffered, and the student experienced fear and anxiety that resulted in going on anti-anxiety medication.
The complaint was filed with the Human Rights Commission, which, if it accepts the complaint, will conduct an investigation into the allegations filed by the ACLU, said Lia Ernst, the lead attorney for the ACLU.
“No student should ever be subjected to bullying, harassment or threats of violence. For school administrators to ignore multiple, credible reports of racist abuse, as they did in this case, is completely inexcusable,” Ernst said Tuesday morning.
The complaint includes the initials of the student but Vermont News & Media is leaving the initials out to further protect the student’s identity.
The complaint says that in one instance of the ongoing harassment, a group of male students repeatedly accosted the student in the hallway, raising the Nazi salute and yelling the “N-word.”
In another incident, a male student lunged at the student threateningly.
After school administrators failed to respond, the racist harassment and bullying escalated, the complaint says.
“In the spring of 2021, a Snapchat video captured a group of male students at the school yelling the “N-word” and “Burn, Burn, Burn!” and that they “hope (the student) burns in hell,” the complaint says.
“Still, Twin Valley officials took no meaningful action to protect (the student),” Ernst said. She said in her six years with the ACLU in Vermont, this is the first complaint it has handled involving racist student harassment and bullying.
Ernst said at one point, the principal, Roth, without consulting with the student or the student’s mother, convened a “counseling circle” that resulted in more bullying and harassment.
“It failed spectacularly,” Ernst said. The students did not take the issue seriously, she said. “These are very, very difficult things.”
The Human Rights Commission staff was unavailable on Tuesday. But Ernst said its process involves an independent investigation and a finding. The Human Rights Commission also works at settlement discussions between the two parties, she said.
The complaint was filed under the public accommodations act, and schools, by law, are considered public accommodations, she said. The suit seeks “just compensation,” for the student, as well as to recover the student’s costs, including lawyer’s fees.
“The racism this student experienced is unfortunately a daily reality for students across the state, and one that is still not being talked about or addressed the way it needs to be,” said NAACP Windham County branch president Steffen Gillom, in a prepared statement. “Educators and administrators need to support students of color, and that starts with paying attention, listening and responding appropriately when they are harmed. That didn’t happen in this case.”
Windham Southwest Supervisory Union Superintendent Barbara Anne Komons-Montroll issued a statement late in the afternoon.
“Twin Valley School District maintains strict policies against harassment,” the statement reads. “In this case, when the administration was made aware of allegations of racial harassment, we notified families, investigated and, where substantiated, took appropriate disciplinary action.”
The statement continues, “The disciplinary actions taken by us were effective. No student repeated the race-based misconduct. We will zealously defend our actions before the Human Rights Commission, and in any subsequent litigation. We dispute the suggestion that the district failed to follow the law. The district will prevail in any litigation concerning this matter.”
