Black teacher sues district for racist student behavior and lack of discipline – The 74

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A teacher has filed a complaint accusing the Ottumwa School District of encouraging racist behavior by students by failing to impose sufficient discipline for such behavior.

Robert Bender is suing the Ottumwa Community School District in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa seeking unspecified damages related to allegations of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and violations of federal law on civil rights. Principal Jerry Miller and Vice Principal Dana Warnecke are also named as defendants.

Bender, who is black, began working for the district in July 2021 as a behavioral instructor and junior high school basketball coach. Since then, he has also served as a junior high school girls track and field coach and currently works for the district as a high school special education teacher.

In his lawsuit, Bender alleges that from the time he started working for the district in 2021, he has been the target of racially motivated abuse and harassment from students. In early September 2021, he alleges, a student referred him using the n-word. Although several colleagues witnessed the incident, they did not dispute the students’ behavior, according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, two other incidents of a similar nature occurred in the weeks that followed, and after the matter was reported to Miller and Warnecke, the student involved was suspended for a half or full day. .

Over the next three months, according to the lawsuit, Bender was repeatedly referred to by the same racial epithet uttered by different students in front of other district employees, administrators, and students.

During this time, Bender also received sticky notes with racist messages written on them, according to the lawsuit. Bender reported the conduct to Miller and Warnecke. The matter was referred to the district’s executive director of human resources, who assured Bender that such behavior would not be tolerated, according to the lawsuit.

Unfortunately, the lack of discipline emboldened the students and they continued to refer to Mr. Bender as before staff and administration, according to the lawsuit. One student in particular repeatedly used the term racist in reference to Mr. Bender. The student was eventually sent on timeout for his use of the term, but Mr. Bender was the adult in charge of supervising the student. Throughout the time out, the student continued to use the term addressed to Mr. Bender.

In March 2022, Miller reportedly reassigned Bender from a behavioral teacher to an inclusion teacher for the 2022-23 school year. The reassignment was allegedly due to Bender allowing a student out of his class, a common occurrence in the district, according to the lawsuit.

That same month, a student at a bus stop reportedly directed the n-word at Bender in front of staff and parents and, a few weeks later, used the word again in front of Miller. The student was not removed from class and, to Benders’ knowledge, was not disciplined, the lawsuit says.

Around the same time, other students were suspended for three days, one for slamming a door in a vice principal’s face and the other for calling a teacher fat. According to the lawsuit, Miller later told Bender that while he didn’t take offense to the n-word, he understood why Bender would.

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants allowed students to harass and humiliate Bender through the harsh and pervasive daily use of racial slurs and racist language.

The district has yet to file a response to the lawsuit. The Iowa Capital Dispatch could not reach the district’s communications specialist for comment on the lawsuit.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a grant-supported network of news outlets and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Managing Editor Kathie Obradovich with questions: [email protected]. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.

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