Photo Courtesy of Jimmy Hoffmeyer/ AP
On September 14, Jimmy Hoffmeyer filed a $1 million lawsuit against Mount Pleasant Public Schools after a librarian and a teacher’s assistant chopped Jurnee, his 7-year-old biracial daughter’s hair off.
According to the MLive, the lawsuit claims racial discrimination, ethnic intimidation, and constitutional rights being violated against Jurnee.
As previously reported, on March 24, Jurnee came home from Ganiard Elementary with 2-3 inches of her hair cut off by a classmate. Her father then decided to give her a new style cut by a professional, and a few days later, his daughter came home with the other side of her hair chopped off by school employees.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit said, “The Defendants failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline, and supervise their employees, and knew or should have known that the employees would engage in the complained-of behavior given the improper training, customs, procedures, and policies, and the lack of discipline that existed for employees.”
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Ganiard Elementary mentioned in a previous statement that Jurnee “grew unhappy and dissatisfied with the way her hair looked after the other student cut it and asked a school library employee to help fix her hair during a classroom visit to the library.”
“Regardless of their good intentions, these actions are unacceptable and show a lack of judgment on the part of our two employees,” the statement continued. “Both employees have admitted their actions and apologized.”
Despite the employees apologizing, it doesn’t seem like the school’s district is ready to go down without a fight. The school district said they are “confident that the facts will prevail.”
“We will aggressively defend against these baseless allegations in court and will not allow this to distract us from our mission to provide every child a world-class education that prepares them for college and careers,” President Amy Bond of Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said in a statement.