Students Sue Mamaroneck Schools For Civil Rights Violations

MAMARONECK, NY — A lawsuit filed in May against the Mamaroneck school district claims that a brother and sister experienced frequent racial harassment. The family of the teens said, even though the harassment was reported several times, the district, the school board and the administrators did nothing to stop it.

The lawsuit claims the two African-American students were deprived of their right to an education because of the indifference of the school district, school board and others, according to the complaint.

Besides the district and school board, Superintendent Robert Shaps, high school Principal Elizabeth Clain and high school Assistant Principal Mario Washington were named as defendants.

The lawsuit was briefly mentioned in a June 9 letter to the community from the board of education. The letter addressed the death of George Floyd and the country's history of racial injustice.

"Our district has faced several accusations in recent years that it has not done enough to address explicit or implicit institutional racial bias," the letter said. "Two weeks ago, a legal claim was filed by a family that alleged the district did not attempt to stop racial harassment of students by other students."

The letter continued with, "That suit has been turned over to the school district's attorneys and we have been asked to refrain from commenting further at this time."

The teens, who filed the suit anonymously, are A.A., a 15-year-old African-American child and his sister, B.A., a 14-year-old.

A.A. went to three schools in the district, with Mamaroneck High School being the final one, from 2018 to 2019. He is currently a 10th-grader and is being home-schooled.

B.A. last attended Hommocks Middle School from 2017 to 2019. She is now in the eighth grade and is being home-schooled.

After being taunted since fifth grade by racial slurs and sexualized comments by classmates, A.A. dreaded going to school, according to the complaint, and became depressed, considered harming himself and began to withdraw.

The children and their mother reported the racial harassment "regularly, in writing, to the children's teachers, guidance counselors, assistant principals, principals, and, at the end, the superintendent," the complaint said.

As a result, A.A. faced retaliation from his peers for telling school administrators of the racial discrimination he suffered. B.A. also experienced racial insensitivity from her classmates.

Lawyers for the family included in the lawsuit past investigations by state and federal agencies of claims of racial discrimination, including a 2018 incident where a black middle-school student was called a racial slur by a classmate and was asked to read a definition of the word on a phone.

In 2016, the state Education Department investigated a complaint about the district refusing to enroll a student who had previously lived in Guatemala.

In 2012, the school district was investigated and found that Central Elementary School's assignment of students to kindergarten classes produced a "racially disproportionate impact."

The May lawsuit claims that the children were deprived of benefits that come from learning in a school setting with teachers and peers and will "forever be scarred by the racism they experienced."

The family is asking for a jury trial and compensatory and statutory damages, as well as expenses, including reasonable attorney fees.

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