Right Here In River City... Part II

Here in Connecticut we tend to think that we don’t have racism up here, but actions show otherwise. I just saw this posted on Facebook, it is a little old but still relevant.

There is a complaint filed with the Office of Civil Rights against a high school here in Connecticut!

Feds to probe Farmington parents’ LGBTQ complaint of chronic bullying: ‘The school does nothing’

CT Insider

By Jesse Leavenworth

August 24, 2022

The federal government is investigating a complaint accusing the local school district of discriminating against LGBTQ students and failing to protect them from chronic bullying that included homophobic slurs and a group stomping of a Pride flag.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Aug. 10 notified the parent who wrote the complaint that investigators will examine whether the school district failed to respond appropriately to gender identity/sexual orientation harassment that included reports of a middle school student telling an LGBTQ student to “go die” multiple times.

OCR enforces Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any organization that receives federal funding. Parents who reported bullying of their children contend that school officials either mishandled or did not complete investigations into parents’ and students’ reports of bullying and harassment.

[…]

“Numerous students have stopped reporting harassment because ‘the school does nothing,’ ” the complaint stated.

There are many laws here in Connecticut and federal laws that ban discrimination. But the laws are only good as they are enforced, and many schools just give a wink and nod to the laws. Some have reported zero cases of bullying in their systems… they are perfect little angels.

The complaint cited several incidents in which LGBTQ students were the targets of bullying, discrimination and harassment.

In a September 2021 instance, according to the complaint, a Muslim student in a social studies class at Irving A. Robbins Middle School started making homo- and transphobic remarks, targeting two LGBTQ students.

[…]

The complaint also stated an LGBTQ student reported numerous homophobic comments and actions by another student, who sometimes barked at the targeted child.

“Homophobes bark at LGBTQ+ people because they liken queerness to a virus that is catching,” the complaint stated. “The exhalation from barking is thought to ward off queerness.”

Our little Johnny would never do anything like!

In a December article in CT Mirror they write, “Is Farmington committed to diversity, equity and inclusion? The jury is out” by Sana Shaikh,

After several Farmington High School students showed leadership and supported the need to have Diwali — one of the largest Indian festivals, celebrating “light over darkness” — as a school-sponsored holiday, the Board of Education then denied that request. Jewish holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, were simply omitted from the 2022-23 school year.

But the public outcry from the South Asian and Jewish community obligated the Board of Education to revert their decisions to the 2022-23 calendar: Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah have been reinstated. Diwali will fall on a weekend in 2023 so there will be meetings in the future to “explore” its reinstatement.

[…]

There were calls from those attending the meeting for the board to apologize. Instead of responding to that request, those requesting the apology were named as “disruptions” at four distinct times.

The Hartford Courant said,

They say the harassment and bullying they experienced ran the gamut from microaggressions such as whisper campaigns and stares in class, to being deadnamed and called homophobic slurs, to being urged to commit suicide, to allegedly being assaulted at the end of the school year when a student attempted to pull off a Pride flag that was tied around Miles’ neck.

Now add that to the OCR and it makes you wonder what is going on in Farmington. CT Insider ended with...

Farmington Public Schools continues to be ranked as one of the best in the state as it relates to academic rigor. Is the Board fully committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging efforts? The jury is out on that one.