friend of mine sent me this story. as i read it, i found my jaw just dropping open in amazement - -
I think this could be the case in any intregrated school in America!!
Black And White Of 'Ho' Culture
By KATHLEEN PARKER
May 19, 2007
CHARLESTON, S.C. - In a new twist in American race relations, a federal court has ruled that a white teacher in a predominantly African-American school was subjected to a racially hostile workplace.
The case concerned Elizabeth Kandrac, who was routinely verbally abused by black students at Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston. Their slurs make shock jock Don Imus look like a church deacon.
Nevertheless, despite frequent complaints, school 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.
Kandrac finally filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and subsequently brought a lawsuit 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.
The defendants sought a new trial, but U.S. District Judge David C. Norton recently affirmed the verdict. However, he did not support the jury's findings of $307,500 in damages for lost income and emotional distress. The judge said a new trial would have to determine damages, but the school district and Kandrac settled for $200,000.
While the dollars-and-cents issue may have been of paramount importance to school and district officials - and would have lent heft to the verdict - the 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."
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.
Defense attorney Alice Paylor told jurors that the kids heard this same language at home and there was "no magic pill" to make them behave.
Paylor is probably right about that, though a magic paddle might have worked wonders.
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. Kandrac's attorney, Larry Kobrovsky, argued that the repeated use of "white" made these slurs racist in nature. But school officials insisted that because black students were equally abusive to other blacks, the language wasn't inherently racist.
Here's what we know without question: If majority white students had used similar language toward black students and teachers, the case would have been plastered on the front page of The New York Times until heads rolled.
Though Kandrac lost her job, the real losers are the children deprived of an education by the actions of a tyrannical few. And the worst racists are those teachers and administrators who denied these empowered brats the expectation of civilized behavior.
May the rest of America now be emboldened to act decisively in the interest of students who want to learn.
Kathleen Parker's column is distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.
