Texas student's mom says pencil shavings incident motivated by race

Marquis Jay, 13, says a teacher poured pencil shavings into his mouth. / CBS DFW

A Texas mother is filing a civil rights complaint against her son's 8th grade teacher, accusing her of pouring pencil shavings into his mouth.

CBS DFW reports that Deidre Brown, the mother of 13-year-old Marquis Jay, filed a complaint with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights against the district.

The teacher, who works at Boles Jr. High School in Arlington, was handed a brief suspension following the incident in January, but has since returned to work.

Brown's attorney says the district didn't handle the teacher's actions appropriately, that the boy involved was discriminated against because of his race and disability, and that the school was trying to cover up the whole thing.

"Instead of coming out clean and saying we don't tolerate this, they decided to cover it up and let her go back to class," said Local Civil Rights Activist Kyev Tatum. "There's no difference between what they did and the administration at Penn State [University] did."

Brown says she believes the actions were motivated by race, and that her son was the "only black student in the class that day."

United Educators Association, the union representing the teacher, denies the allegations and said the incident was fully investigated. "She's apologized to the student has also apologized to the student in front of the class ... Race did not play a role at all in this," said Steven Poole of the UEA.

[Aussie_convict]

"It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate."


"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.
-- James Baldwin

[Aussie_convict]

Far too much compassion and empathy? Maybe he was trying to make up for your disticnt lack of either.

[Mario_G147]

Quite stupid to equate this minor incident in a classroom in full view of everyone to the multiple rapes of dozens of underage boys in showers at Penn State over the decades.

The student looks to be unharmed, and is unafraid to handle a pencil sharpener with shavings in it, so it must not have been a life-changing event.

I'd like to see just one word about the details, contact the teacher, anything at all, the other students in class, because this did not happen in a vacuum.

So it's a stupid and exaggerated claim for sure. I'd just like to know what led to it.

[maryderricotte62]

Why would you want to keep a teacher who would assult a child in this manner. There are descent teachers out of work and this one needs to be fired.

[EvolvedLiberal]

Lifebouy?

[robert1129]

Race motivated or not, this teacher should not be teaching. She needs to be fired.

[Think4times]

The teacher, who works at Boles Jr. High School in Arlington, was handed a brief suspension following the incident in January, but has since returned to work.
_______________________________________

Why wasn't she fired?!?!

Because acceptable in Texas to be racist.
Or maybe it's acceptable in Texas to pour pencil shavings down a kid's throat.

Most likely both.

[judymar14]

The teacher is a b***h, but what has this to do with race? Though it does make for a better lawsuit.

[Former_Marine_Sgt]

With the absolute lack of details other than 'teacher put pencil shavings in the mouth of a black child', apparently "because of his race and disability", Teacher gets brief suspension, it's easy to wonder why she would bring up race AND disability (yeah - the article says she used BOTH, not just the race card).

However, I'm sure there are more details that aren't disclosed here. I mean - come on, the teacher didn't just suddenly appear out of no where to shove pencil shavings into the kid's mouth as a magic trick...

[magnumdr]

Why would anyone in their right mind poor shavings into a kids mouth? If there was any lead in these shavngs the kid could be hurt. Some people just seem to get more stupid every day?.