Student in trouble over slavery petition accused of threat to shoot up Park Hill South

One of the four Park Hill South High School students involved in a petition to bring back slavery ended up in police custody a few weeks later, accused of threatening to shoot up his school.

A friend’s parent allegedly overheard him threatening violence against the school and called the police. “The young man adamantly denies making a threat,“ said his lawyer, Arthur Benson. He says no evidence was found to corroborate the accusation.

Still, police posted an officer at the school, because every report of a threat has to be taken seriously. Just like every racial incident.

Benson is representing the parents of the four, who are suing the school over how their kids were punished. They claim the petition was all a joke, and that it had to have been harmless, because two of the four students involved are biracial.

If it was supposed to be a joke, it wasn’t. And that two biracial students are involved doesn’t make it any funnier. Or any less troubling.

The alleged threat of violence against the school has deepened the divide between parents who believe the incident was overblown and those who see it as all too predictable. The latter group sees those parents trying to get their kids out of trouble as part of the problem.

It’s natural for parents to be protective. But they’re not only suing the district for stiffly punishing their kids. They’re also blaming school leaders for not teaching students that racist language and behavior are no jokes.

Don’t parents also have a responsibility in that regard? And sometimes, the way you teach is through punishment.

The federal lawsuit filed last week in St. Joseph by parents of 14- and 15-year-old high school football players, claims that the slavery petition, started in September on Change.Org, was a result of “friendly banter.”

“This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion,” said Benson.

The suit says a school bus video shows that a Black student was talking about not being able to get a job, and laughed at the suggestion that his job prospects would definitely improve if the country would “start slavery again.” That he laughed, if he did, is supposed to make what happened all OK, but does not.

People who’ve been alive long enough to have sons in high school ought to know that laughter doesn’t always signal amusement. Sometimes, we laugh when we’re nervous, or afraid, or trying to minimize a problem.

The boy blamed by the others for laughing was not punished. Probably because laughter is not the same as sharing the petition with other students on social media. It doesn’t violate the student conduct policy against racial harassment.

School officials said that after students offended by the petition told them about it, the district investigated and held disciplinary hearings with the boys involved.

The school board, following rules prohibiting harassment, expelled the biracial student who wrote the petition and suspended — for 180 days — three other boys who commented on the petition. “I love slavery,” “I hate blacks,” and “I want a slave,” were their comments.

Parents argue it was a joke, protected as free speech

The parents, in the suit, argue the students’ free speech rights were violated, because the petition was an expression of humor and not “intended to cause and did not cause any disruption to educational or sports activities.”

Of course district leaders say that’s not true. Other students were not laughing. Students were hurt. School officials spent hours talking with and listening to offended students during school time.

The district issued notices to parents about the incident. But parents who filed the suit say it was the communication from Superintendent Jeanette Cowherd about “racist statements,” and one from Principal Kerrie Herren, who defined the petition as racist, and not the petition itself that upset the student body and the community.

The parents’ suit claims the incident was the district’s fault because the school culture is “infused with frequent casual use of racial and ethnic epithets and slurs,” and no adults stopped the behavior. Coaches, the suit says, “mostly condoned heavily racialized interactions among” young athletes. If that’s true, coaches and other adults should also be disciplined.

But you can’t really argue both that the school overreacted in this case and that the real problem is a history of underreaction; if the second part is true, then it follows that punishing their sons was a welcome departure from the way things had been handled in the past.

The parents insist the punishment their boys received is excessive. They want them back in the classroom, and ultimately they want their records expunged, as if nothing ever happened.

“It was a sick joke,” one parent told The Star. “Does anyone really believe someone wants to start slavery again?”

No. But that they weren’t literally pushing that idea does not make the whole thing OK.

The school board would rightly have been criticized if it had not acted.

And that children of color were involved in such a racially offensive gesture actually shows why it’s so important that all students are taught accurate history, and understand that today’s racism is a vestige of slavery.

This situation is the kind of thing that happens when adults fail, it’s true.

But allowing these students to escape consequences would all but guarantee that they learn nothing from their mistake.

That their parents are arguing it was all a joke, sick or not, won’t help them in life even if they win in court. And that their lawsuit tries to pin responsibility on the Black kid who supposedly laughed is really sad.