GOODY TWO SHOES: It’s Only Racist When Don Imus Says It
Columnist Kathleen Parker writes about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) discrimination complaint filed by Elizabeth Kandrac, a white teacher in Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston (SC), because of continual verbal abuse by her black students that made shock jock Don Imus "look like a church deacon":
[S]chool officials did nothing to intervene on Kandrac's behalf, arguing that the racially charged profanity was simply part of the students' culture. If Kandrac couldn't handle cursing, school officials told her, she was in the wrong school. …
The key legal question was whether a school could be held responsible for students' behavior. In this case, the black children of Brentwood had been given a pass for their behavior because vulgar language was considered normal for their culture. …
Let's be clear: What these children called this teacher is beyond reprehensible and could be only be construed as hostile and threatening. Here's a sample: white b——, white m——- f——-, white c—-, white a———, white ho.
Other white teachers and students corroborated Kandrac's account, including a male war veteran who testified he would rather return to Vietnam than to Brentwood.
In addition to her EEOC complaint, Kandrac also filed a civil suit against the Charleston County School District, the school's principal and an associate superintendent:
Last fall, jurors found that the school was a racially hostile environment to teach in and that the school district retaliated against Kandrac for complaining about it. …
[S]he was suspended from her job shortly after a story about her EEOC complaint appeared in the local newspaper, and her contract was not renewed.
The defendants sought a new trial, but U.S. District Judge David C. Norton recently affirmed the verdict; the school district and Kandrac settled out of court for $200,000.
The outcome of the case is unsatisfying to Parker, who notes:
[T]he more compelling issue for students, parents and society is the idea that a particular group of people can be allowed to behave in a grossly uncivil and threatening way by virtue of their racial "culture.'' …
Back in the day, if a student talked the way these did, he or she would have received a well-deserved thwack, been suspended and sent home to face the wrath of his or her father. That process likely would have put a swift end to the tribal tyranny now often tolerated in the service of self-esteem.
Let's see... Thou shalt not use the name of the LORD thy God in vain; honor thy father and thy mother...no, wait, the Ten Commandments are unconstitutional (!!).
Reply to this