Fourth-graders had to role play as slaves in class assignment, Tennessee lawsuit says

A Black fourth-grader with autism was told to play the role of a slave during a school assignment in Tennessee, his parents said in a new lawsuit.

Students in his class also had a "Let's Make a Slave" lesson, focusing on a speech that contains "the most dehumanizing, vile, and racist prose imaginable," according to the lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court. Metro Nashville Public Schools and a teacher are named as defendants.

The school district declined to speak about the pending lawsuit but shared a statement when details about the assignment emerged earlier this year, USA Today reported.

"Metro Schools regrets if any students or parents were caused pain as a result of this incident," the school system said in the statement. "District leaders have been working with school administrators and parents to address concerns for the students involved."

Outrage erupted when Waverly Belmont Elementary School students were told to read lines from the "Let's Make a Slave" text during Black History Month, WSMV and other news outlets reported. The Willie Lynch speech, likely given in the 18th century, described controlling slaves and setting Black people on fire.

Also during Black History Month, the lawsuit says, students were told to pretend to be enslaved people. The children did this by curling up "under desks and pretending to seek freedom from slavery by being mailed away in a box," according to the court filing.

The family says their son with autism sometimes interprets information literally.

"He thought his family could be broken apart, that he could be separated from his family, that they could be set on fire, or that he might not see his mother again," according to the lawsuit.

The student teacher who gave the lesson was fired after the district says the "material that was not age appropriate or within the scope of sequence for the 4th grade class," news outlets reported in February.

Now, the parents of the student are seeking damages after they say the district's negligence and "racial harassment" brought their child harm.

The lawsuit comes at a time when schools grapple with how to teach African American history. This year, activists across the country have called on districts to introduce more comprehensive curriculum about the origins of inequality and discrimination, McClatchy News reported.

At a young age, kids should read about the hardships of slavery while also learning about ways that enslaved people sought freedom, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a 2019 report from The Washington Post.

___

(c)2020 The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

Visit The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) at www.newsobserver.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.