Officials in Warren Township School District are under fire following the filing of a civil rights lawsuit by the parents of a mixed-race student in the New Jersey town.
They claim their son was subjected to harassment, intimidation, and bullying by his second-grade teacher due to his racial background.
The New Jersey family further claims the student was retaliated against when the civil rights allegations were brought to officials’ attention.
The teacher allegedly sent the 7-year-old boy an Afro wig and white paint on July 9, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when students were still remote learning, according to the Daily Beast.
The family’s complaint reportedly says teachers had access to students’ addresses for the 2021-2022 school year. That school year began on Sept. 1, 2021.
Denise and Kevin Anderson, the boy’s parents, state in a racial harassment complaint filed on July 6 that Amazon’s customer service verified for them that the boy’s teacher, Christine Rzasa, sent the items, which they call an “act of intimidation.”
Still, the school board, district, and Jeff Heaney, the principal at Woodland School in Warren Township, did nothing to reprimand the educator. According to the lawsuit, while nothing was done to the teacher, their son was retaliated against and was forced to learn in a “hostile education environment.”
Warren Township in Somerset County is a predominantly white community, according to the most recent U.S. Census. Individuals that identify themselves as mixed race make up 3.2 percent of the population. The child, listed only as J.A. in the lawsuit, would have already been noticeably different from others in the class.
The Afro-Latina mother and white father say in the lawsuit that as a result of this, their son, whose “appearance easily identifies him as a member of the mixed-race community,” feels afraid about the learning process.
The boy, now in the fourth grade, also feels humiliated and intimidated by his teacher’s action and suffered emotional and mental damages for which he had to receive therapy and change schools, the complaint says.
The Andersons say, in addition to the trauma and transferring of schools, there are other injuries that their son has endured.
The lawsuit names the teacher, principal, school, district, and district board as defendants, claiming specifically, “Rzasa’s conduct can be described as nothing short of outrageous.”
The school board is the only defendant to have released a statement denying the validity of the claim.
“The Board of Education and the individual employees deny the allegations in the Complaint and intend to vigorously defend the case. At all relevant times, the Board of Education’s primary concern is the education and well-being of its students,” communications coordinator Shannon Regan wrote.
While WTSD did not release a statement, it did say that it “rejects hate and racism in all forms.”
