Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Politics/National
Editor's PicksNationalNewsVideo

Texas Teacher Caught on Tape Abusing Student Has Been Arrested, Another Student Comes to Her Defense

Posted byBy Ricky Riley | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

 

A Texas high school teacher seen repeatedly slapping a student on a now-viral video was arrested on Friday.

The teacher was identified by NBC News as 63-year-old Mary Hastings of Ozen High School in Beaumont, Texas. According to NBC News, the video was recorded Friday and discovered later that day by school officials.

The video shows Hastings slapping the Black student as punishment for allegedly disrupting her class. She repeatedly strikes the student in the head.

You can hear the woman say:

“Because you’re stopping him from graduating, you idiot a**!” Hastings says while slapping the student.

“Why you did that?” the student asks after Hastings strikes him.

There is yelling and laughing in the background as well. The student who was assaulted also seems to be laughing after Hastings attacked him.

According to local Texas news outlet KFDM, an Ozen student spoke up to defend the veteran teacher. That student has decided to remain anonymous to avoid possible backlash. The student told KFDM that Hastings is a great teacher and that students always throw things and cuss at the woman before the video surfaced.

“You know we only see 12 seconds of it. That’s all it is. It’s not the whole thing,” the student said to the Texas news outlet. “They were saying that’s not like her. They were upset that she had done it. It was hurtful. She had to be escorted off campus.”

The racial overtones of the situation continues an unfortunate trend of violence involving students and school officials. Video surfaced last week of a San Antonio student being body-slammed by a police officer and temporarily knocked out by the officer.

Since the incident, Hastings has been arrested for assault in Jefferson County. Also, the Beaumont Independent School District removed her from the classroom and placed her on leave.

“The Beaumont Independent School District can confirm that an Ozen High School teacher was arrested today for physically assaulting a student,” the district said.

Over the weekend, Hastings was released on a $2,500 bond.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top