‘Don’t Need Your Help, You Cotton Picker’: Massachusetts Middle Schooler Was Shunned and Bullied By White Classmates Because He Black, Lawsuit States
The parents of a Black middle school student in suburban Boston are suing their son’s school division for failing to protect him from heinous racial bullying and harassment he suffered from his peers.
The Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Public Schools of Brookline and Amos A. Lawrence School on behalf of a 14-year-old boy, identified as MC in the complaint, and his parents, Ricardo and Weddee Henry.
The suit, obtained by Atlanta Black Star, alleges that the eighth grader was subjected to “egregious racial harassment and physical violence” by other students in a “hostile environment” that was “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” at his middle school in Brookline, Massachusetts.
In one incident from December 2023, the suit states that a student told MC, “I don’t want your help, you cotton picker,” after the 14-year-old tried to help his classmate clean up some food he dropped on the ground.
Another incident happened in April 2024 when MC tripped over a piece of equipment in music class. While he was on the ground, a white student ran up to him, put his knee on MC’s neck, and yelled, “George Floyd! George Floyd!” mocking the police killing of a Black man in Minneapolis four years ago. The student didn’t remove his knee until MC’s friend intervened.
MC’s parents tried to involve school administrators after learning about these incidents from their son, but officials were passive in their response to the Henrys’ concerns, according to the complaint.
When MC’s mother told the school counselor about the “cotton picker” slur, she was told that the school would facilitate a meeting between the Henrys and the parents of the student who said the slur. That meeting was never held, and the student was only told to apologize to MC. Later, the counselor started reducing the hateful nature of the slur to “just a joke.”
After the April incident in MC’s music class, the principal promised the Henrys that the school would consult with the Office of Educational Equity. It took weeks before the office’s senior director responded to the Henrys’ complaint but didn’t give them a plan of action on how the incident would be addressed. It’s also unclear whether the student who pressed his knee on MC’s neck faced disciplinary action.
“If my son had done something even remotely close to what had happened, he would have been expelled. God knows, he probably would have been in juvenile detention right now, depending on the circumstances,” Ricardo Henry said, according to CBS News. “What I was more surprised about is the fact that they were very nonchalant about the whole thing.”
“In 2024, you would think that any reenactment of George Floyd’s murder in a school could clearly constitute an example of severe racial intimidation,” attorney Mirian Albert told the Bay State Banner. “That wasn’t the case here.”
In a statement, Brookline Schools Superintendent Linus Guillory Jr. condemned “hatred and racism in all of its forms” and said the district is reviewing the lawsuit.
“Racism and discrimination run contrary to the values of our school district,” Guillory said. “We are currently working with counsel to review the complaint, and we will put forward an appropriate response within the timeframe allowed by the legal process.”
Two other cities in Massachusetts made national headlines this year for incidents involving racist harassment and discrimination.
In March, six middle school students in the town of Southwick were charged after staging a mock slave auction in a Snapchat group in which they bullied their Black peers, according to authorities. The Lawyers for Civil Rights is representing one student who was targeted in that mock auction.
In June, news surfaced about an elementary school teacher in Southborough, Massachusetts, who was placed on administrative leave after administrators learned he held an impromptu mock slave auction in which he asked two students of color in his class to stand to point out their physical attributes.