A California High School will have to pay after a Santa Clara County Jury ruled against it in a lawsuit involving students that they essentially accused as racist. This is just one case that shows how progressive traits are becoming more prevalent in schools.
The lawsuit was filed against Saint Francis High School, an independent Catholic school, which expelled two students after they posted a photo on social media that allegedly showed them wearing blackface. What’s the problem? The school did not claim that the kids had actually worn blackface.
Two former students sued a Mountain View Catholic High School, claiming administrators had forced them to leave because of an alleged photo with blackface. The actual picture showed teenagers masked by acne medication.
Frank Hughes, father of one student, stated that the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs for two claims brought against Saint Francis High school, for breach of verbal contract and lack due process. Hughes, the father of one of the students, said that he and other plaintiffs had lost three other claims, alleging breach, defamation, and a violation to free speech.
Krista Baughman said, “Our main goal was to clear our clients’ names,” in an interview with the plaintiffs” lawyer Krista after the jury verdict, which was delivered on Monday. The jury was clear that they believed the masks were innocent. Their Internet trail will haunt them for 60 years. “Now they don’t need to worry about it.”
The school’s representatives said that they “respectfully disagreed with the jury’s conclusion regarding the lesser claim about the fairness our disciplinary review procedure” and suggested they may seek an appeal.
In August 2017, a boy with acne wore a face mask.
In August 2017, a child identified in the lawsuit as A.H. donned a mask his mother purchased to treat severe acne. He took a selfie in the bathroom with a boy wearing a white mask to treat acne. According to the lawsuit, A.H. rubbed green medicine on his face in solidarity with a friend, H.H. and a third child, Minor III. They then took a selfie. A photo in court exhibits shows three boys without shirts, with one of them flashing rock ‘n’ roll horns.
The students claimed that they took the pictures as a joke and not with racial animus. However, the photo went viral during a national reckoning on race and inequality. Some people who saw the photo thought it was a clear depiction blackface. One parent posted the photo online ahead of an upcoming march to protest the “outrageous” behavior and to pressure the school into taking action.
The pictures were discovered in 2020, amid the national debate over the murder George Floyd. Parents and students connected with the school claimed that the boys made a racist joke, and they applied public pressure for them to be removed from school.
The lawsuit accused the SFHS of using an “innocent and wholly unrelated photo of the boys” to falsely accuse them of wearing ‘blackface’. It also claimed that this photograph was a’second example’ of racism.
In recent years, there have been several “scandals”, involving blackface. In November, an author from Deadspin tried to smear nine-year old child who allegedly wore blackface during a Kansas City Chiefs match. Later, it was revealed that the boy was actually wearing the colors of the Kansas City Chiefs.
These incidents and others are occurring against a backdrop of increased racial tensions across America
