The Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously passed a proposal implementing a new framework for addressing incidents of racial slurs after years of complaints from Black educators. The resolution, which was passed on Tuesday, called for increased student counseling related to the N-word and staff training for responding to and reporting incidents of hate speech.
Significance. Jalisa Evans, the CEO of Black Educator Advocates Network, said these incidents are part of a larger pattern of long-standing racial harassment and racism perpetuated by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
As The Emancipator previously reported, racial harassment against Black teachers has been well documented.
When reporting the harassment to school administrators, teachers are met with “a calculated pattern of retribution,” like poor performance evaluations, involuntary transfers, demotions, and professional isolation, the Black Educator Advocates Network said in a statement.
Some teachers formed the Hate Speech Task Force to report incidents formally. However, the Black teachers within the Los Angeles School District claimed state and district officials made empty promises that had yet to produce any accountability.
Shelly Castillo, a San Fernando Middle School history teacher, told The Los Angeles Times that Black students have also reported being called racial slurs like “the N-word, a monkey, and other degrading names.”
“They don’t report it a lot because they have not been believed, and they’ve been targeted or isolated,” Castillo continued.
Overlooked angle. The final resolution was supported by many coalitions and advocates for Black teachers. And yet, the version that ultimately passed was weaker than the initial proposal.
The passed resolution was targeted mainly towards hate speech of all kinds and not specifically racial slurs like the N-word. According to testimony about the pattern of incidents, the N-word was most commonly used against teachers and students.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the passed resolution focused on the harms that this language does to students. Not the educators. Black educators were the first to raise the alarm on these incidents and reported many instances in which they were subjected to these racial slurs, and little was being done to address the harassment.
Power structure. The resolution is centered around the school district’s “restorative justice” model. This approach focuses on the students’ understanding of why they were wrong and making amends for the harm caused, without facing punishments like suspension.
The Board of Education at the Los Angeles Unified School District is set to meet in March to report and discuss the progress made.
