{"id":718,"date":"2022-12-12T18:02:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cooper-for-all.local\/?p=718"},"modified":"2023-03-27T10:46:54","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:46:54","slug":"taunted-for-being-black-a-student-fought-back-civil-rights-complaint-says-the-30-second-fight-derailed-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cooper-for-all.local\/news\/taunted-for-being-black-a-student-fought-back-civil-rights-complaint-says-the-30-second-fight-derailed-her-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Taunted for being Black, a student fought back, civil rights complaint says. The 30-second fight derailed her life."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reports of racist bullying at Slaton High School are part of a pattern of discrimination in and around Lubbock, Texas, civil rights groups say. They\u2019re filing complaints and calling on the federal government to investigate.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Mike Hixenbaugh<\/a> from nbcnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black girl\u2019s hands were shaking as she approached a white classmate in gym class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told you,\u201d Autumn Roberson-Manahan said, her voice quivering, \u201cto stop using that word.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn, a 17-year-old senior at Slaton High School, said she\u2019d asked the boy four days in a row to stop saying the N-word in class. And for four consecutive days, according to Autumn and a half-dozen other students later interviewed by the school principal, the boy had disregarded her pleas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019d said the slur while talking trash on the basketball court, Autumn recalled: \u201cOh! I\u2019m ballin\u2019 on y\u2019all n—-s.\u201d And while cleaning up at the end of class: \u201cThese dumb n—-s left the balls out again.\u201d That day, Oct. 27, he\u2019d said it again, smirking after having dribbled past a student and hitting a jump shot, Autumn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, Autumn, a straight-A student and one of only two dozen Black students at her small-town high school outside Lubbock, had been complaining about racial harassment involving three other classmates since the second week of school, according to interviews with Autumn and her family, messages they sent to administrators and a civil rights complaint<\/a> filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Education. In September, she\u2019d secretly recorded two boys in class calling her the N-word. When the alleged harassment continued, Autumn told administrators she was struggling to focus on her schoolwork. Her parents tried to intervene, demanding to speak with the principal and writing to the superintendent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the racist comments didn\u2019t stop, according to the federal complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why, Autumn said, when the boy in gym class said the slur yet again, she snapped. \u201cMy mindset was: \u2018This is the only way it\u2019s gonna stop. This is the only way he\u2019s gonna learn.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A classmate noticed what was about to happen and hit record on a cellphone. The grainy video appears to show Autumn \u2014 who had no major disciplinary history \u2014 grabbing the boy by the hood of his sweatshirt and yelling at him between each openhanded slap to the top of his head: \u201cYou\u2019re gonna learn! \u2026 To stop! \u2026 That f——! \u2026 N—– shit!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the student wriggled out of Autumn\u2019s grasp and darted away, she continued to shout at him, tears forming in her eyes as a substitute teacher stepped between them: \u201cIt\u2019s not OK!\u201d Autumn screamed. \u201cIt\u2019s racist!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The violent outburst, which had been building for months, lasted barely 30 seconds \u2014 but it was long enough to derail Autumn\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slaton administrators sentenced her to 45 days in an alternative school for students with severe disciplinary problems, according to the complaint and records reviewed by NBC News. Distraught and convinced that her future was ruined, Autumn\u2019s family said she ran away from home last month and made a plan to kill herself. Now out of the hospital and recovering, the girl who\u2019d entered this school year hoping to be named valedictorian is no longer sure she\u2019s going to graduate on time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey took my beautiful baby girl \u2014 who my husband and I worked so hard to mold and love and support \u2014 and they broke her,\u201d Autumn\u2019s mother, JaQuatta Manahan, said in an interview. \u201cThey didn\u2019t protect her. They cast her aside like she was trash.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBC News was unable to reach the family of the student Autumn was accused of assaulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when some parents and politicians nationwide are fighting to keep difficult discussions about racism out of schools, Autumn\u2019s story raises questions about how districts determine which types of student behavior are harmful enough to warrant harsh and decisive disciplinary action. In Autumn\u2019s case, she and her family contend, school administrators drew a hard line, not in response to months of repeated and well-documented racial harassment, but only after a Black student acted in response to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her experience is part of a troubling pattern at the Slaton Independent School District and in the broader Lubbock region in West Texas, according to a collective of civil rights advocacy groups that includes the local NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and the Intercultural Development Research Association, a nonprofit education equity group. The groups filed federal complaints with the U.S. Education Department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of more than a dozen Black students, including Autumn, who say they\u2019ve faced racial discrimination at Slaton and in a neighboring school district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The complaint cited Autumn\u2019s experiences in accusing Slaton of failing to train its staff in \u201chow to effectively and appropriately prevent, identify, and respond to racial bullying and harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Andrus, Slaton\u2019s superintendent, said federal student privacy laws prevent the district from commenting on Autumn\u2019s case. In a written statement to NBC News, Andrus said the district trains staff regularly on how to address bullying allegations and has zero tolerance for racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSlaton ISD is working diligently to prevent all forms of discrimination and harassment and will continue to do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a separate filing<\/a>, the civil rights groups said Black students in the Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District, which shares a border with Slaton, have been subjected to a toxic racial environment in which white students have sometimes played whipping sounds on their phones as Black students walked by. Racial slurs are prevalent in hallways, students reported, and last year the district\u2019s Laura Bush Middle School made headlines<\/a> after someone created an Instagram page called \u201cLBMS Monkeys\u201d and posted photos of several Black students. Despite repeated pleas from parents, administrators haven\u2019t done enough to stop the harassment, the civil rights groups alleged in their complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with \u201cNBC Nightly News,\u201d Lubbock-Cooper Superintendent Keith Bryant said his district has taken several steps to prevent racial harassment in recent months, including new diversity training for teachers and students. He disputed the argument that Lubbock-Cooper has fostered a toxic racial climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo I think there\u2019s racism in our community? Absolutely,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cDo I think it spills over into schools? I will certainly say it can. We work really hard to try to mitigate that. There is no place in Lubbock-Cooper ISD for racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paige Duggins-Clay, a civil rights lawyer with the Intercultural Development Research Association, said the experiences of Black students in the Lubbock region underscore the need for public schools to take proactive approaches to combating racism. Autumn\u2019s allegations, in particular, she said, reveal how dangerous it can be when schools fail to treat racist bullying as a serious threat to students\u2019 well-being. She pointed to research<\/a> that shows children who are harassed based on their race, sexual orientation, gender or national origin are more likely to struggle in school and develop mental health disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s ironic, Duggins-Clay said, that politicians and activists who\u2019ve fought to stop schools from confronting racism \u2014 in the form of diversity training and changes in disciplinary policies \u2014 have done so this year under the banner of \u201cparents\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the rights of Black parents and children like Autumn? she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019re gonna hurt you\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 22-page civil rights complaint filed on Autumn\u2019s behalf details alleged harassment that started the second week of school and culminated in the fight in gym class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn, whose family had moved to Texas from Ohio this summer, said she was sitting in one of her classes in August when a Hispanic classmate turned and asked what neighborhood she was living in. After she answered, Autumn said, the boy told her, \u201cOh, I run your block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was annoyed but figured the kid was just trying to be funny or acting tough. Later in class, he repeated the line. Only, Autumn said, this time he ended the sentence by calling her the N-word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn, the oldest of three siblings, felt a chill run up her spine. She\u2019d always loved history, and like most Black children, she\u2019d known from a young age that the slur was associated with centuries of racial violence and oppression in America. It was shocking to hear it roll off the tongue of a classmate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s offensive,\u201d Autumn remembered telling him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wasn\u2019t the reception she\u2019d imagined when she learned she was moving to Slaton, a railroad town of 6,000 people in the South Plains region of West Texas, where both of Autumn\u2019s parents grew up. Slaton\u2019s sleepy downtown looks like it was ripped from another era. Newcomers are greeted by a mural depicting Black workers toiling in a cotton field as a white farmer peers down from the seat of a tractor, along with the slogan \u201cSlaton: Your Kind Of Town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high school, located a few blocks away, serves fewer than 400 students, the overwhelming majority of whom are white or Hispanic. Only about 1 in every 15 students is Black, which \u2014 as Autumn soon discovered \u2014 often turned them into targets. NBC News spoke to three other Black teens named or referenced in the federal complaints who said classmates routinely say the N-word in the hallways at Slaton. Two recalled white students\u2019 calling Black classmates \u201cporch monkeys\u201d and mocking them with gorilla sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aware of this culture, high school officials held a campuswide assembly on the third day of school to set expectations for student behavior. Administrators specifically warned that any student caught saying a racial slur would automatically be given a three-day in-school suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threat didn\u2019t seem to dissuade the boy who told Autumn he runs her block, she said. One week after the assembly, Autumn said, he walked past her desk and repeated the line, then he mouthed the N-word. Autumn said that when she confronted him \u2014 \u201cWhat did you say?\u201d \u2014 the boy shook his head: \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Autumn said, she overheard the boy laughing with a white student. \u201cYou start it, and I\u2019ll finish it,\u201d she heard one of them say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A moment later, Autumn said, one of the boys said the first syllable of the N-word, and the other student said the rest. Another student who sat nearby laughed, Autumn said. After that, she said, their singsong chant became a staple of her school day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Autumn told her mother, JaQuatta, about what was happening, she was outraged. She\u2019d grown up in Slaton in the 1990s and the early 2000s, and although she remembered kids\u2019 making racist comments, it was never this bad. That night, she ordered a special pen with an audio recording device hidden inside it and instructed her daughter to turn it on the next time the boys started harassing her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to have proof,\u201d JaQuatta said. \u201cWhen it comes to Black children, I\u2019m sorry to say it, you have to have that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn said she used the device on Sept. 7 to record the boys saying the N-word chant. Afterward, one of them can be heard saying, \u201cHey, we\u2019re gonna hurt you.\u201d After Autumn challenged them \u2014 \u201cWhat you just say?\u201d \u2014 one of the boys told her she must be on crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, Autumn\u2019s mother drove to the school and demanded to meet with the principal, Mario Aguirre, who\u2019s Hispanic, and the assistant principal, Bo Medley, who\u2019s white. JaQuatta said she detailed the daily harassment her daughter was reporting and told them she was worried that it was taking a serious toll on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe is a breath of fresh air,\u201d JaQuatta told them. \u201cI would love to keep it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aguirre immediately investigated Autumn\u2019s allegations, according to notes included in her disciplinary file and reviewed by NBC News. Autumn said she shared the recording with Aguirre and played it for him, but his notes don\u2019t mention it. Based on interviews with multiple students, he concluded that at least one of the boys had said the slur in class, the records show. That student accused Autumn of calling him an anti-Hispanic slur, which she denied. Aguirre reminded the boy of Slaton\u2019s policy of giving students three-day in-school suspensions for racial slurs, and \u201cproper discipline was assigned,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the weeks that followed, Autumn said, students continued to make racist comments, with some teasing her for reporting the earlier incidents: \u201cWhat, are you gonna snitch on me, too?\u201d A white student told her she was \u201csmart for a Black girl,\u201d Autumn said. Another said she was \u201ckind of pretty for a Black girl.\u201d Later, according to Autumn, a teacher and other students who later spoke to the principal, a few students began harassing Autumn every morning over her decision to sit during the pledge of allegiance because of her religious and political beliefs. Day after day, she said, they called her \u201cweird\u201d and told her she needed to respect the flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeave me alone,\u201d Autumn recalled saying in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JaQuatta began to notice changes in the way her daughter was dressing and in her attitude about school. \u201cI could see that she was struggling,\u201d she said. Then, on Sept. 29, Autumn called her from school, crying. She\u2019d left class and locked herself in a bathroom stall after another argument over the pledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, when JaQuatta and her husband showed up to confront administrators, she hit record on her cellphone. With Autumn sitting beside them, JaQuatta chastised school officials for failing to stop the harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing the N-word with \u2018er,\u2019 you get three days?\u201d JaQuatta said, referring to in-school suspensions. \u201cWhen my ancestors, my family \u2014 they died? They were raped and killed, if we tell that part of history when it comes to that word. And you mean to tell me my child can\u2019t feel safe? When all she wants to do is be excellent?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medley, the assistant principal, assured them that he would look more closely into Autumn\u2019s complaints. He said he was surprised to learn that Autumn was struggling emotionally. She seemed so \u201cbubbly\u201d whenever he saw her in the hallway and at football games, he said, and according to her teachers, she was typically a joy in class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn told Medley it was becoming harder to keep up the facade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting to the point where school is dreadful,\u201d she told him. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be hostile. But it\u2019s like either I\u2019m gonna have to keep dealing with it and just cower into a corner, or sooner or later, you\u2019re gonna have to hear me roar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn\u2019s father, Broderick Manahan, warned that his daughter was being pushed to the brink. How would the school react, he asked Medley, if she finally did something to defend herself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One month later, they got their answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pain and punishment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within hours, the cellphone video of Autumn smacking the boy in gym class began to spread via text messages. Mary Pegues, a former Slaton school board member and longtime teacher\u2019s aide in a neighboring district, was furious when she saw the clip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pegues, who\u2019s Black, said she\u2019d been warning Slaton administrators for years that the racial climate was hostile to Black children, including two nieces she\u2019s raising. One of them, Trinity Hawkins, 15, told Pegues the harassment was so overwhelming it made her wish she weren\u2019t Black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hate to come to you about this same old racism and bullying,\u201d Pegues had written to Andrus, Slaton\u2019s superintendent, in April, after Trinity came home complaining that a classmate had once again called her the N-word. \u201cPlease help me with this matter before it becomes a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pegues hated to see Autumn driven to violence, she said, but maybe now the district would finally take decisive action to stop racist bullying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have gotten my hopes up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days after the gym class altercation, on the morning of Halloween, Autumn and her parents once again met with administrators at the high school. This time, it was to decide how she would be punished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Principal Aguirre opened the meeting by reading from the findings of his investigation: \u201cAutumn assaulted Student A in PE class by striking Student A in the face and head area while restraining Student A by holding on to the hood of his sweat top. Autumn was loudly swearing during the ordeal.\u201d Aguirre also read notes from his interviews with more than a half-dozen students, each of whom said the boy had repeatedly said the N-word over the course of a week and that Autumn had repeatedly asked him to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her parents seated next to her at a conference table and Duggins-Clay, the Intercultural Development Research Association civil rights lawyer, watching over Zoom, Autumn was given a chance to explain herself. After she acknowledged that hitting the boy \u201cwas not the best way\u201d to handle the situation, she detailed the months of harassment that led her to that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She explained how she\u2019d always loved school and how that had changed since she moved to Slaton. She wasn\u2019t sleeping. Her grades were slipping. She was struggling to get out of bed every morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI reported situation after situation, to where, personally, I felt like we were almost begging for some type of reparation for everything going on, for some type of justice,\u201d Autumn told the administrators, tears welling in her eyes. \u201cIn the process of all of that, I feel like I was losing myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duggins-Clay unmuted her microphone and urged the officials to consider that Autumn had acted in self-defense \u2014 and to take into account that she\u2019d previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression \u2014 before they decided how to discipline her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not saying that there shouldn\u2019t be accountability here,\u201d Duggins-Clay said. \u201cBut the context matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that, the school official charged with reviewing the matter handed down her finding: She agreed with Aguirre\u2019s recommendation. Autumn would have to serve 45 days \u2014 one-quarter of the school year \u2014 at the district\u2019s Disciplinary Alternative Education Program, or DAEP, a boot camp-like campus<\/a> where students are made to wear orange uniforms and sit facing forward at all times and are permitted to \u201cspeak only when spoken to\u201d by staff members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn\u2019s younger brother, Triston, 14, had been sentenced to 30 days in DAEP on the second day of school after he witnessed a group of boys vandalizing school property and failed to intervene \u2014 part of a pattern of excessively harsh discipline against Black students at Slaton, the civil rights groups alleged in their federal complaint. After having heard Triston\u2019s accounts of being hazed and bullied at the program, Autumn was terrified at the thought of going there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stared down at her lap as the district official went over the fine print of her sentence. Her mother, straining to keep her cool, asked for paperwork to appeal the decision and refused to sign the document acknowledging the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn was quiet as she and her family left the school and headed to their car. Once they were nearly halfway home, she finally broke down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to go to that school,\u201d she sobbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father pulled over, and together he and his wife tried to comfort and encourage her. Be strong, they said. We\u2019re going to fight this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn didn\u2019t say it then, but she didn\u2019t feel like she had any fight left in her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You don\u2019t understand my cry\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

About 36 hours later, late on the evening of Nov. 1, Autumn\u2019s parents say they got a phone call from a family member. He\u2019d gotten word that Autumn had run off and was planning to kill herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI froze,\u201d JaQuatta said. \u201cI told my husband I needed to pray, that I couldn\u2019t accept any more bad news. So I stayed behind, and he left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn\u2019s father sped across town to the spot where his daughter had threatened to take her life. He pulled her into his arms and rushed her to a hospital, where she was admitted for inpatient psychiatric care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, the physician overseeing Autumn\u2019s care wrote in her medical record, \u201cIt is my medical opinion, Autumn would benefit from a change within her school environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While she was still recovering, Autumn\u2019s parents met, once more, with Slaton High School administrators. Officially, the purpose was to hear their appeal of Autumn\u2019s discipline. But JaQuatta saw it as her chance to tell administrators, face to face, what happened to her daughter and who she believed was to blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cY\u2019all know who I am,\u201d JaQuatta said after an official tried to take a roll call at the start of the meeting, according to an audio recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it was her turn, she reminded Aguirre and Medley about all the times she and her husband had come to them, asking the district to put a stop to the harassment before it was too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all those meetings, she\u2019d done her best to remain calm. To advocate for her daughter without raising her voice. Always saying \u201csir\u201d and \u201cma\u2019am.\u201d Doing everything she could to avoid being perceived as \u201cthe angry Black woman,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the process had broken her, just as it had her daughter. It felt as if a dam had broken inside her, and now she was yelling and crying and cursing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy child tried to kill herself! You don\u2019t understand. You don\u2019t understand my cry, as a mother. You don\u2019t understand my pain!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the meeting, she called Aguirre and Medley \u201cdemons with f—— halos, doing the devil\u2019s work,\u201d and told them she was coming for their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was finished, the room was quiet for a moment. Then Aguirre read a statement aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt this point, there will be no dialogue between the both of us,\u201d he said. \u201cA decision on this matter will be delivered to you in writing no later than 10 business days from today\u2019s date.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purpose and recovery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Autumn doesn\u2019t have clear memories from the days immediately after her initial disciplinary hearing. \u201cI blacked out,\u201d she said. \u201cDisassociated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, she felt \u201ctotally defeated.\u201d She saw the perfect image of what she\u2019d imagined for her senior year fading away, along with her hopes for everything that was supposed to come after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, six weeks later, although she hasn\u2019t yet returned to school, she\u2019s seeing things with a clearer perspective and is once again ready to fight on her own behalf. \u201cAfter I was able to get help and get away from the environment, that\u2019s when I realized, \u2018OK, there is a purpose here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to her appeal, Slaton administrators notified Autumn\u2019s parents last week that they are now willing to consider a reduced disciplinary sentence based on her mental health diagnosis, which they acknowledged is a disability that, by law, must be considered in their decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But getting back on track at school isn\u2019t Autumn\u2019s only goal. She says she wants to use her ordeal to help other students like her. That\u2019s why she agreed to file a civil rights complaint, which she hopes will lead the federal government to open an investigation and mandate reforms at Slaton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father, Broderick, said changes are needed, to protect not only Black children, but also white students like the one from gym class. The way he sees it, the school district\u2019s failure to treat racial harassment like a serious offense \u201callowed that young man to get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, the district has made at least one change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, after Pegues and other parents spoke out at a school board meeting about Autumn\u2019s case and what they called a pattern of racism at Slaton, high school officials revised their disciplinary policy. Under the revised rules, the district said in a statement, students will face increasingly severe punishments for saying racial slurs at school, culminating with 30 days in DAEP for third offenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Autumn was glad to hear about the change. But she doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s enough to simply punish students. Schools, she said, also need to educate children about the history and impact of racial discrimination in America and help them understand why certain words have the power to destroy \u2014 or, in her case, nearly destroy \u2014 someone\u2019s spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a recent call with Duggins-Clay, Autumn remembered something a Slaton administrator told her early in the school year: that she shouldn\u2019t let something as small as a word drag her down. She could feel herself getting angry all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not,\u201d Autumn said, \u201c\u2018just a word.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reports of racist bullying at Slaton High School are part of a pattern of discrimination in and around Lubbock, Texas, civil rights groups say. They\u2019re filing complaints and calling on the federal government to investigate. By Mike Hixenbaugh from nbcnews.com The Black girl\u2019s hands were shaking as she approached a white classmate in gym class. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,7],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bullying","tag-racism"],"yoast_head":"\nTaunted for being Black, a student fought back, civil rights complaint says. 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