Steven Carnine, a 25-year veteran teacher, has been accused of making “racially charged” comments in class — including the “N” word and saying that Ferguson, Missouri’s Michael Brown “got what he deserved.”
The suit against the Los Angeles Unified School District “alleges civil rights violations and seeks unspecified damages as well as a court order directing that the LAUSD provide accommodations to students ‘free from prohibited discrimination.’”
The plaintiff, “Maggie B.,” alleges that Carnine distributed a questionnaire the day after Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday about racial stereotypes.
She claims that Carnine “said that the guy [Brown] was a thug and he got what he deserved,” and that “Black people are judged for not being smart because they are not smart. A lot of them are just athletes.”
The Los Angeles Daily News reports:
Carnine went on to say that if he was walking alone at night and there were two black men behind him, he was “immediately going to be scared and think they are either going to steal from me or hurt me,” the lawsuit alleges.
The teacher also allegedly said, “We all know Jews like to hoard their money.”
Carnine made the remarks while looking directly at the plaintiff and the one other black student in the class of about 30 pupils, the suit alleges.
Maggie, whose family was involved in the civil rights movement, became “intensely uncomfortable and uneasy by these comments,” the suit states.
The girl’s father complained to the school principal, Christopher Perdigao, who replied that Carnine was “old school” and that the best way to solve the issue was to try and meet with him, the suit alleges.
However, that same day, Carnine, during a lecture on the Civil War, stated that “people didn’t like Lincoln because he was a (N-word) lover,” the complaint alleges. Carnine was “staring and smirking” at the plaintiff when he made the remark, according to the suit.
What the LA Daily News doesn’t note is that many parents are coming to Carnine’s defense. A petition page has been established in support of the teacher.
One parent said that students were discussing the “N” word and Abraham Lincoln, whereupon Carnine led a discussion about how racism developed.
A student in the class said that Carnine did state that Mike Brown was a “thug,” but that “he absolutely did NOT deserve to be harassed like he was.”
On the RateMyTeachers website, Carnine had had “consistently high ratings” until news of the lawsuit hit the press.
Read the full LA Daily News article.
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