White teacher accused of classroom noose display files lawsuit
www.independent.co.uk
A New York teacher has filed a lawsuit over the handling of an offensive collage

A white New York school teacher allegedly accused of putting up a racially offensive image in a classroom claims she was a victim of racial discrimination herself.

In 2019 an image circulated of a collage displayed in a classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in New York that sparked outrage among the community and school district officials.

The photo, part of a larger classroom display of teachers and students, showed a pair of nooses under a caption that said “back to school necklaces,” alongside the words, “Ha Ha,” “#YES” and a smiley face.

The school district blamed an “isolated group of teachers” for the collage and said “appropriate action” had been taken, according to The Daily Beast.

Years after the incident, Nancy Jones Doering filed a lawsuit against the school district, revealing herself as one of the teachers accused.

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
    133·
    10 months ago

    Verbally joking about suicide as a teacher - bad idea. Putting your suicide joke on display for all to see? Well, really now, what did she expect?

      • gibmiser@lemmy.world
        42·
        10 months ago

        It can be, but not in the context it was presented.

        Somewhat related, One Halloween I wanted to put a skeleton up in my front yard, so I decided to hang it from a utility pole by a rope around its neck. I didn’t think much of it, but my white neighbor (I’m also white) asked me to take it down because we lived in a historically black community and it could be perceived as a lynching reference.

        Personally, I think people should give me the benefit of the doubt on Halloween that a decoration is not a racist display, but it’s not worth to possibly of upsetting people and causing drama so I took it down.

        • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
          34·
          10 months ago

          But this wasn’t for Halloween and the area of the school is 50% black while the white teacher claims of racial discrimination against her. This absolutely reeks of a racially motivated act to me and thus a lynching reference.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 months ago

      e; I feel the need to preface this one - she’s claiming she had no responsibility here, but

      a) we haven’t gotten the school’s side of it or any other independent confirmation,

      b) the hearing board exoneration could just be a case of the school district not keeping good records and minding details of their teacher’s contracts and doesn’t really establish that this teacher didn’t exercise poor judgment and show poor character during this,

      c) it seems really weird that this teacher had nothing to do with this collage, but also felt compelled to take it down herself when she saw it (instead of reporting it to the administration and letting them do what they will with it), and then just happened to be the person asked by the other teacher to serve as a union rep in the meeting that led to her suspension.

      I could believe that the administration ignored a bad situation until it started to blow up and then went looking for a scapegoat and this teacher just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but with all these weird little details it does start to feel like more of a stretch.

      Either way, my main point in making this comment was just to say the discussion about whether these nooses were racist or not is beside the point because everyone agrees they were dumb, the only dispute here is whether this teacher was or wasn’t responsible for them.

      Anyway, my original comment starts on the next line -

      Her claim is she didn’t do it -

      Ms Jones Doering claimed in the lawsuit that she never created, displayed or assisted anyone in putting up “any racist collage.”

      …

      The lawsuit states that on 6 February 2019, the Roosevelt Union Free School District was informed of the “offensive and racially infused” collage on display, but when administrators from the district visited and inspected the collage they “failed to remove it or instruct that teacher from removing it.”

      Ms Jones Doering said in the lawsuit that the classroom where the collage was displayed was not hers, referring to it being in an “other teacher’s classroom.”

      The suit claims that a day after, Ms Jones Doering entered the classroom to leave lesson plans there she “noticed the offensive nature of its content, and removed it from the classroom so that students and staff members are not exposed to it.”

      She then allegedly placed the images in a locked cabinet in her classroom.

      The next day, Ms Jones Doering was asked by the other teacher who allegedly had the collage in her classroom, to accompany her to a Human Resources meeting to represent her as her “union representative.”

      However, following the meeting, they were both given letters of suspension and claimed the defendants “refused to provide any information regarding” this decision.

      She claimed that the school district “falsely accused her of displaying the collage in her classroom, which is completely false and fabricated accusations,” the lawsuit said.

      Ms Jones Doering also purports that she was accused of “interfering” with an alleged investigation into the collage by removing the offensive imagery and bringing “negative attention” to the school - which she claims was caused by tips to the media.