‘You Should be in a Black African Monkey Show’: California School Let Students Terrorize Two Black Boys for Months Until Both Developed PTSD, Lawsuit Says
The mother of two Black elementary school children filed a civil rights lawsuit against the California school district whose officials she alleges failed to protect her sons from months of severe racial harassment from other students, despite her repeated complaints.
Daphne Hawkins says classmates subjected her 7- and 10-year-old sons to a racist curriculum, dehumanizing racial slurs and racialized insults on a near-weekly basis at Mariposa Elementary School in Redlands, California, leaving both boys diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.)
The insults, dating back to October 2024, included classmates calling the children “mud” and “tar ball,” and got worse two months later when students in her son’s first-grade class were introduced to the racially offensive caricature known as “Black Pete,” according to the lawsuit filed in San Bernardino Superior Court in March and obtained by Atlanta Black Star.
Performers traditionally depict Black Pete, a helper to Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, by painting their faces black and donning an afro wig and big red lips.
Racial Slurs and Dehumanizing Comments
Following this classroom lesson, which “normalized and reinforced racial stereotypes and caused the Hawkins Children to feel singled out and demeaned,” the complaint says, the children “became the target of escalating derogatory comments by other students.”
In January 2025, the Hawkins’ 10-year-old son, identified as John Doe 2 in the lawsuit, received a handwritten note from another student during class that said, “your skin is as black as your future.”
The note was humiliating, racially degrading and threatening in tone, the complaint says, and caused the boy to cry and withdraw from class participation that day, and to dread returning to school.
The parents reported the incident immediately to the classroom teacher, who confiscated the note, and later that day to the school principal. But despite this notice, the plaintiffs say, “RUSD failed to implement a written safety plan, separate the offending student, or provide increased supervision, after which additional racial harassment occurred.”
In February 2025, a student told the 10-year-old during recess, “You should be in a Black African monkey show”, a slur multiple students heard, and one yard supervisor stood close enough to catch, the lawsuit says.
After the family reported the incident to school staff and administrators, RUSD responded only by telling the offending student to “be nice,” with no documented discipline, parent conference, separation measures or monitoring, the lawsuit says.
Both Hawkins children began avoiding recess and reporting stomachaches before school after this incident, “demonstrating a direct link between RUSD’s inaction and escalating emotional harm,” the complaint contends.
First-Grade ‘Black Pete’ Lesson Sparked Escalating Harassment
A month later, during a first-grade lunch period, a student confronted John Doe 1 and said, “Your skin is the color of dog food,” a remark overheard by a playground supervisor. A school counselor later noted that the boy demonstrated withdrawal, appetite suppression and declining class participation.
At that point, Daphne Hawkins and her husband, Channing Hawkins, took their concerns to a meeting of the Redlands Unified School District in March 2025, where they also rallied other Black parents and members of the local NAACP chapter.
Daphne Hawkins said the “three deeply disturbing racist incidents” her son had endured over the past 90 days were “not just words. These are an attack on our children’s dignity and their identity.”
“We moved here because we thought it was safe,” Channing Hawkins said at the school board meeting. “We thought the community was safe and our kids would have a better opportunity in life. We didn’t realize we would get here and they’d have to draw Blackface characters.”
Mariposa Elementary, located in an affluent area of South Redlands, has an enrollment of 435 students, of whom only 1.6 percent are Black, while 45.3 percent are white, 31.5 percent are Latino, 10.1 percent are Asian, and 0.5 percent are American Indian or Alaskan Native, according to California Department of Education Data, noted the Redlands Daily Facts.
RUSD Superintendent Juan Cabral responded at the meeting that it was unacceptable for any of the district’s teachers to choose “Black Pete” to be a part of any classroom activity, the IEVoice reported. He said the principal addressed the incident immediately once she became aware, and that he learned about it several weeks later during a meeting with the Hawkins family to discuss the other incidents of racist bullying.
Attorney Says District Has Not Accepted Full Responsibility
Cabral said he had conducted a meeting with staff to identify the unacceptable behaviors and to intervene with students, including visiting every classroom to teach the children that the behavior and “any kind of hate speech” was “not okay,” adding, “I will hold all of the staff that are under me accountable for also leading by example. I am going to do everything we can as a district to be better.”
The Hawkins and their attorney say such accountability actions did not occur. While the school and the district did conduct an investigation and sustained multiple findings that their children were targets of race-based harassment, the lawsuit says, RUSD failed to take corrective action or to revise protective measures.
“The reason we’re now moving forward with the lawsuit is because the school district has not accepted full responsibility for the issues that were raised or done anything close to adequate to remedy the situation and address the harm caused to the kids,” Willie W. Williams, the attorney representing Hawkins said.
The district’s omissions listed in the lawsuit include failing to provide culturally competent counseling despite the availability of Title 1 funds designated for that purpose, failing to provide adequate training for teachers and yard-duty aides, failing to adequately supervise children at recess and at lunch, failing to compile data tracking or a uniform log of bias incidents, and delaying proper parental notification of bullying and harassment incidents.
The school district instead “imposed minimal discipline, consisting primarily of counseling and informal corrective measures, rather than meaningful disciplinary consequences, and failed to separate the offending students from the Hawkins Children or monitor future interactions.” As a result, the complaint says, “the hostile conditions persisted, reinforcing to offending students that race-based misconduct would not result in significant consequences.”
Lawsuit Accuses Redlands Unified of ‘Deliberate Indifference’
The “deliberate indifference” of school and district staff to the ongoing racial harassment was a substantial factor in causing the children’s psychological injuries, the plaintiffs argue, including PTSD that both boys were diagnosed with in April 2025, and for which they continue to receive treatment.
Both children have experienced other symptoms, including anxiety, fear of attending school, nightmares, emotional withdrawal, depression, hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating, and loss of enjoyment from school activities, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says the Redlands Unified School District deprived the Hawkins children of equal access to educational opportunities in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It alleges the district also violated California law by failing to maintain a nondiscriminatory educational environment and disregarding the parents’ concerns by negligently supervising students and failing to adequately address the harassment of their children.
The plaintiffs further claim intentional infliction of emotional distress, which has led their children to suffer humiliation, mental pain and anguish.
Family Demands Culturally Affirming Curriculum District-Wide
They seek a jury trial to determine compensatory damages for payment of counseling, medical treatment and parental wage loss; and other monetary damages for emotional distress and legal costs.
The Hawkinses also want the court to order the school district to remove racially insensitive curriculum district-wide and replace it with culturally affirming, standards-aligned instructional material; to implement cultural competency and anti-racism training; to appoint an independent equity taskforce and an independent equity consultant to provide oversight; to develop an incident reporting dashboard and a Black student success initiative; to offer free, trauma-informed counseling and academic support; and to adopt a board-level anti-racism resolution.
The school district has not yet filed a response to the complaint in court.
In a statement, the Redlands Unified school board said that since adopting a resolution in 2020 declaring racism a public health crisis, it has expanded diversity and inclusion initiatives, advisory groups, staff training, ethnic studies coursework, student support services, and anti-discrimination policies aimed at fostering belonging and equitable opportunities. The district said it continues to assess those efforts through community feedback, state accountability measures and compliance reviews.