Principal segregated students into Black-only classes in Georgia, federal complaint says
A Georgia parent has filed a federal civil rights complaint against her daughter’s grade school accusing its principal of segregating students based on their race, multiple outlets report.
Kila Posey, 43, said she was in “disbelief” after learning administrators at Mary Lin Elementary School in Atlanta were relegating the school’s Black students into separate classes apart from their white peers, according to WSB-TV. The practice was allegedly put in place by the school’s principal, Sharyn Briscoe — who’s also Black.
Posey couldn’t believe “that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me — a Black woman,” she told the news station. “It’s segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can’t do it.”
She said the issue came up during a conversation she had with Briscoe last year about her daughter being placed in a second-grade class with a teacher who she believed best fit her child’s learning style, NBC News reported. But Briscoe told Posey it would be an issue because the class she wanted her daughter in wasn’t “a Black class.”
The principal, Posey said, proceeded to explain that the school’s Black second-graders were placed into two classes with two teachers while white students were placed across six classes with six teachers, according to NBC News.
“(Briscoe) said she was splitting the Black students and only placing them into two classes as opposed to giving them free rein of the six classes like the white students,” Posey told WAGA. “She said she was building community with the Black families and I explained to her that’s not your job.”
Posey has since filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights accusing Mary Lin Elementary of racial discrimination, WSB-TV reported. Attorney Sharese Shields, who’s representing Posey, said the complaint accuses the school of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”
Included in the complaint are two audio recordings of school administrators confirming Posey’s allegations that Briscoe was keeping students racially segregated.
The Education Department’s civil rights office said Friday that it could not confirm the case because an official investigation hadn’t been launched, a spokesperson for the department told McClatchy News. The complaint isn’t listed among the office’s open cases.
Posey also complained to Atlanta Public Schools, which said it reviewed the allegations “and took immediate and appropriate action at that time to resolve the issue,” WAGA reported. It’s unclear what action was taken or if Briscoe was disciplined.
The school district provided a statement to McClatchy News on Friday, which reads, in part: “Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is focused on creating high-quality, equitable teaching and learning environments in our classrooms that foster collaboration among all our students. Using race as a method for assigning students to classrooms is unacceptable. APS does not support or condone this behavior.”
Posey agreed, calling the principal’s actions both illegal and unfair to students.
“This is not really a Black or white issue,” she told WAGA. “It’s against the law.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Principal segregated students into Black-only classes in Georgia, federal complaint says."