A lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Black woman’s daughter, alleging that Los Angeles Unified and the Board of Education set up a cotton-picking field at her daughter’s Hollywood school in 2017 as an instructional tool about slavery, causing emotional distress. According to the judge, Rashunda Pitts must provide more details for her two civil rights violations claims and her negligence cause of action against the board within 30 days in an amended complaint, for the claims to remain in her lawsuit. The defense attorneys argue that all of the suit’s claims are “legally defective.”
The girl identified as S.W. attended Lauren Span School in Hollywood in the fall of 2017. She shared the events of her school day with Pitts at first, but her daughter became more sullen as the semester went on and attributed it to being tired, according to the suit. Eventually, Pitts saw a cotton field on campus, and the suit states that she was bewildered as to why a cotton field would be growing in Hollywood. However, Assistant Principal Brian Wisniewski informed her that the children in S.W.’s class were reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and that picking cotton was one of the experiences he wrote about. Wisniewski further explained that the cotton field was planted so that the students could have a real-life experience of what it was like to be a slave by picking cotton themselves, according to the suit.
Pitts’ daughter later confided in her that her social justice teacher required students to pick cotton to learn what it was like to be a slave and that while she was not forced to participate, she had to watch other students doing so. According to the lawsuit, no school officials obtained permission from parents of children to participate in the cotton-picking project, and parents weren’t told about the idea before its implementation.
The LAUSD later released a statement stating it regretted that an “instructional activity” at Laurel Span School was construed as culturally insensitive. The LAUSD’s statement represents an acknowledgment that the school district recognized that Laurel Span School’s Cotton Picking Project, as explained to Pitts and the school students, was discriminatory and harmful to the students, the suit alleges. The suit further claims that the district’s response was a lie to cover up the conduct.
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