ORDERED HUMILIATED FOR 'RACISM'

 

 

9-year-old suspended
for 'hate crime'

 

 

9-year old suspended for 'hate crime'
The Arizona Republic 27 November 2007

By ROBERT ANGLEN

PHOENIX — A Glendale elementary school principal has admitted
to telling a 9-year old boy that it is OK to have racist feelings
as long as you keep them to yourself.

“As we said to [the boy] when he was in here, in your heart you
may have that feeling, and that is OK if that is your personal belief,”
Abraham Lincoln Traditional School Principal Virginia Voinovich said
in a tape-recorded parent-teacher conference.

The boy was suspended for three days this month for allegedly
committing a “hate crime” by using the expression “brown people.”

In an interview Monday, Voinovich would not address her comments,
first saying she didn't remember the incident, then demanding a
copy of the recording and finally insisting that she could not talk
about a student's discipline.

The circumstances of the boy’s suspension itself raise troubling
questions about student discipline, interrogation and oversight at
Abraham Lincoln.

Forced to stand before class to confess his 'racism'

According to school officials, the boy made a statement about
“brown people” to another elementary student with whom he was
having a conflict. They maintain it was his second offense using
the phrase.

But the tape recording indicates this only came out after another
parent was allowed to question the boy and elicited from him the
statement that he “doesn't cooperate with brown people.”

After that was reported to the boy's teacher, he was made to
stand in front of his class and publicly confess what he'd said.

The boy maintains that he never said it; that the words were
put in his mouth by the parent who questioned him. That parent
happens to be the mother of the student with whom he is having
a conflict—and she happens to work for Abraham Lincoln as a
detention-room officer.

The tape indicates that rather than just spouting off with racial
invective, the boy was asked first why he didn't want to cooperate
with brown people by the parent/school official.

Mother told she didn't have any rights

In court, this might be called entrapment. Not to mention a conflict
of interest.

Officials at the Washington Elementary School District, who are
supposed to oversee Voinovich, wouldn't comment about the boy’s
suspension. They said only the principal is qualified to talk about it.

Well, the boy’s mother is talking, and she is angry. She has also
removed her son from the school.

“I want parents to know … that principals can abuse their powers,”
Sherry Neve, 35, said. “Principals need to have pro-active supervisors. I want the parents to know that the principal was influencing my son in a way I wouldn't want him to be raised.”

Neve said school officials didn’t advise her of the incident until several days after they questioned her son. When Neve objected to the suspension during the conference, Voinovich told her that she didn't have any rights; that parents give up their rights to discipline when they send a child to school, the tape shows.

“If you don't want that, you can take him out of here,” Voinovich
said tersely.