During the first week of October, Brooklyn Edwards was in the school gymnasium during her lunch period when she said a classmate took a piece of cotton out of his pocket, tossed it on the ground and told her to pick it.
Brooklyn, 15, described the incident a month later at the Johnston County, North Carolina, school board meeting. She said shed dealt with racist bullying frequently as a Black student at Princeton Middle/High School, in a majority-white small town southeast of Raleigh. Classmates called her racial slurs, she said, including in front of teachers who failed to react. One classmate suggested she kill herself, so she might be reborn as a white girl, Brooklyn said.
Its bad enough we have to deal with racism in the real world. We shouldnt have to deal with it in school, she told the school board, pleading with them to investigate racial harassment in the district. Im speaking up for the ones that are too scared to speak up for themselves.
After sharing her experiences at the board meeting, I felt relieved and glad they finally knew what was going on, Brooklyn said in a recent interview, but I had a lot of doubt they were going to do anything.
Kaiulani Moses, Brooklyns mother, said it was disheartening to see the Johnston County school board focused on a different issue this fall: ensuring that critical race theory, an academic concept that examines how racism is perpetuated through policies and institutions, is not taught in schools. She believes that sent the wrong message to students who bullied their classmates and the teachers and administrators tasked with ensuring safety.
It has made these children and some personnel and administrators at this school feel protected, Moses said. The district is one of hundreds nationwide where some parents and conservative activists demanded that schools block classroom discussions of white privilege, cut back on equity training for teachers and stop hiring diversity consultants. The Johnston County Board of Commissioners promised in June to release $7.9 million in school funding if the district banned critical race theory, which administrators said schools did not teach.
In response, the school board enacted a rule in July barring staff members from doing anything to create division in the community. Then, in October, the board passed a policy that limits how teachers can talk about race and requires educators to present historical American figures as innovators and heroes to our culture.
After Brooklyn spoke at the board meeting, she said she continued to receive social media messages from classmates calling her racial slurs. Her mother transferred her to a different school in October.
I shouldnt have to relocate my children because they refuse to fix this problem, Moses said. Its all about politics, and our children are having to pay for it.
Moses said she met with the superintendent this month, after weeks of requesting to speak to him, and he said he would look into the harassment. The superintendent declined an interview request. The school district said in a statement that administrators began investigating Brooklyns claims in early October but did not share the outcome of that investigation. The statement said no other student has reported current incidents of racism at Princeton Middle/High School. Our school board members and school administration will not tolerate racist bullying and harassment of our students, said Caitlin Furr, a district spokeswoman. We will continue to investigate reports that are brought to us and to take other steps to make sure our students have a positive school experience.
This fall, teens in more than a dozen states have staged protests and spoken before school boards about racist bullying and harassment from their peers sounding alarms over discrimination in some of the same districts and states targeted by conservative activists calling for a ban on anti-racism lessons.
Students have walked out of class over racist remarks by classmates in Connecticut and Massachusetts, racist social media posts by teens in Minnesota and Washington, graffiti with racial slurs found in bathrooms at schools in Michigan and Missouri, and threats against students of color in New York and Ohio.
David Hinojosa, an attorney at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law who spearheads the nonprofit organizations work on equal educational opportunities, is concerned that the battles are imperiling efforts to achieve racial and gender equity in schools. He cited the widespread actions opposing diversity efforts that have proliferated across the country, beginning with former President Donald Trumps anti-CRT executive order last year and continuing through state efforts to ban books and limit how history is taught.
When we say its not OK to talk about this truthful history, he said, theres going to be a bleedover effect into the behaviors of school teachers, the behaviors of school leaders and the behavior of students.
The wave of student activism in recent months, he and two other civil rights experts said, shows precisely why schools cannot afford to avoid the topics of race and discrimination.
What the students are shining a light on is the necessity and urgency of talking honestly about race and reckoning honestly with racism, said Matthew Delmont, a Dartmouth College history professor whos studied the civil rights movement. These student protests are making it painfully clear these are issues schools need to fully address as part of the curriculum. ... In Pennsylvania, students staged multiple demonstrations this fall against a ban imposed by the Central York school board on an anti-racist reading list that a group of students, parents and educators had created last fall as an optional resource for anyone looking to learn more about discrimination.
Students marched, wrote newspaper op-eds and used a petition and an Instagram campaign, successfully pressuring the school board into voting unanimously to reverse the ban. But to student organizers like Edha Gupta, a senior at Central York High School, damage had already been done.
It is evident to me that diversity and the voices of color in this district do not matter, Gupta, 17, said at a September board meeting. I dont feel welcome here not anymore.
Students protesting against racial harassment have been met with mixed responses from administrators. In Tigard, Oregon, a superintendent joined a walkout, while in Rome, Georgia, where state education officials passed a resolution this year calling for limits on what is taught in schools about racial issues or current events, students were suspended for leading a walkout in response to classmates waving a Confederate flag.
Hinojosa worries about the impact on students if they arent supported in their fight for an educational experience thats free of harassment and discrimination.
Were putting all of that at risk because CRT has been used as a dog whistle to mean so many different things, he said.
Students have walked out of class over racist remarks by classmates in Connecticut and Massachusetts, racist social media posts by teens in Minnesota and Washington, graffiti with racial slurs found in bathrooms at schools in Michigan and Missouri