Black Student Files Racism Complaint against Michigan School

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[Michigan’s Ann Arbor High School\Makayla Kelsey]
Detroit News: “The letter also accuses the teacher Macke of using coded language against Black students such as calling them ‘criminals’ and ‘delinquents’ and refused to take her class to the Black History Month assembly because it was a ‘waste of time.”
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A student at Michigan’s Ann Arbor High School has filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights alleging that she has been subjected to a racially hostile environment in the school.

An exercise in a high school economics class requiring students to play an online game to see who could own the most slaves.

A teacher who humiliates Black students struggling in math by putting their grades on a Smart Board in violation of the federal education privacy laws.

These allegations and several others were made Monday by a Black high school student who filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights alleging she and other Black students face a racially hostile environment at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor.

The 16-year-old student is represented by the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative, a clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, which interviewed current and former Pioneer Black students and students of color before filing the complaint, CRLI student attorney Liza Davis.

The Civil Rights Litigation Initiative sent Ann Arbor Public School officials a 14-page letter on Monday describing what Pioneer junior Makayla Kelsey and other students have experienced at Pioneer and how it has interfered with their education, Davis said.

The letter alleges that Pioneer math teacher Michele Macke insults Black students and their parents in front of the class, humiliates Black students who are struggling in math by putting their grades on the Smart Board in violation of the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act and is hostile to students who are members of the Black Student Union as well as its faculty advisers.

The letter also accuses the teacher Macke of using coded language against Black students such as calling them “criminals” and “delinquents” and refused to take her class to the Black History Month assembly because it was a “waste of time” and complained that it didn’t focus enough on how white people made contributions to Black people.

Read the rest of this Detroit News story here: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2020/08/24/black-student-alleges-racially-hostile-environment-ann-arbor-high-school/3420464001/

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