MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (AP) — The father of a 7-year-old Michigan girl whose hair was cut by a teacher without her parents’ permission has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school district, a librarian and a teacher’s assistant.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Grand Rapids against Mount Pleasant Public Schools, MLive.com reported. It alleges that the biracial girl’s constitutional rights were violated, racial discrimination, ethnic intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault and battery.
Jimmy Hoffmeyer, who is Black and white, said that in March his daughter arrived home from Ganiard Elementary with much of the hair on one side of her head cut. Jurnee said a classmate used scissors to cut her hair on a school bus, Hoffmeyer told The Associated Press in April.
Two days after the bus incident — and after complaining to the principal and having Jurnee’s hair styled at a salon with an asymmetrical cut to make the differing lengths less obvious — Jurnee arrived home with the hair on the other side cut.
“I asked what happened and said ‘I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair,’” Hoffmeyer said at the time. “She said ‘but dad, it was the teacher.’ The teacher cut her hair to even it out.”
Jurnee’s mother is white. Hoffmeyer said the girl who cut Jurnee’s hair and the teacher who cut it are white.
The district “failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline, and supervise their employees, and knew or should have known that the employees would engage in the complained of behavior given the improper training, customs, procedures, and policies, and the lack of discipline that existed for employees,” according to the lawsuit.
In July, the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said the staffer who cut Jurnee’s hair was reprimanded and an independent third-party investigation determined that despite “good intentions” of the worker who cut the girl’s hair, doing so without permission from her parents and without the knowledge of district administrators violated school policy.
Two other employees were aware of the incident but didn’t report it. All three employees have apologized, the board said.
The school board said the independent investigation found no racial bias and included interviews with district personnel, students and families and a review of video and photos, including posts on social media. District administrators also performed an internal review of the incident.
But Hoffmeyer said the district never questioned him or Jurnee. She now attends another school.
Amy Bond, Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education president, said Thursday that the district has not received the complaint.
“We are confident that the facts will prevail given our district’s appropriate and aggressive response to the incident and the findings of the third-party investigation that was conducted,” Bond said in a statement. “We will aggressively defend against these baseless allegations in court and will not allow this to distract us from our mission to provide every child a world-class education that prepares them for college and careers.”
The district is located about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. About 4% of Mount Pleasant’s 25,000 residents are Black, according to the U.S. Census.
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Number one, race has nothing to do with this incident, Secondly, I agree with the father, that the teacher had no business cutting this little girls hair, without the parents consent.
EVEN IF the parent gave the teacher consent, IMO NO TEACHER HAS ANY BUSINESSES cutting any kids hair. PERIOD! That’s what a barber shop/beauty salon are for…
I’m in agreement that the teacher was not authorized. But is it worth ruining a career over? The girl didn’t seem too upset.
I believe that, usually, hair grows back.
The dad is capital B “Black and white”. Is that checkered, stripes, split down the middle or plaid?
Sounds like the Black half is the real victim here.
Two other employees were aware of the incident but didn’t report it. All three employees have apologized, oh, so I guess everything is a ok
YET no amount of groveling on white folks part, is “EVER ENOUGH” for leftists..
SO IT SHOULD be the same for we the people, when these marxists do stuff like this..
If i had the power, a suitable punishment, would be to TIE ALL three of them down in a chair, and let the kid, cut THEIR HAIR. ALL OFF!
The HORROR!
This would not have been an issue anywhere twenty years ago. Kid already has double ugly hair..female teacher feels sorry and tries to help.
Sounds like an old sitcom plot. Americans used to laugh at this type of thing.
I don’t see the danger to our Republic.
A million dollars for hair that grows back when the cut was almost certainly made with good intentions. For all we know, the little girl may have been teased about her half-cut asymmetrical hairdo and the teacher tried to make her feel better. It was wrong to touch a hair on the head of a child with a part black parent on the lookout for anything they can make into a racial insult and sue for money but a million bucks? Come on!