The father of a 7-year-old biracial Michigan girl whose hair was cut by a teacher without her parents’ permission has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school district, a librarian and a teacher’s assistant.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Grand Rapids against Mount Pleasant Public Schools, alleges a violation of the girl’s constitutional rights, racial discrimination, ethnic intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault and battery.
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Jimmy Hoffmeyer, who is Black and white, said in March that his daughter, Jurnee, arrived home from Ganiard Elementary with much of the hair on one side of her head cut. Jurnee said a classmate used scissors to cut her hair on a school bus. Hoffmeyer complained to the principal and had a salon stylist give Jurnee an asymmetrical cut to make the different lengths less obvious.
But two days after the bus incident, Jurnee arrived home with the hair on the other side cut.
“I asked what happened and said ‘I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair,’” Hoffmeyer said at the time. “She said, ‘Dad, it was the teacher.’ The teacher cut her hair to even it out.”
Jurnee, whose mother is white, said the girl who cut Jurnee’s hair and the teacher who cut it are white.
Before the recent lawsuit, Hoffmeyer was interviewed about the ordeal in July.
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The district “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,” according to the lawsuit.
In July, the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said the staffer who cut Jurnee’s hair was reprimanded and that an independent third-party investigation determined that despite “good intentions” of the worker who cut the girl’s hair, doing so without permission from her parents and without the knowledge of district administrators violated school policy.
Two other employees were aware of the incident but didn’t report it. All three employees have apologized, the board said.
The school board said the independent investigation found no racial bias and included interviews with district personnel, students and families and a review of video and photos, including posts on social media. District administrators also performed an internal review of the incident.
But Hoffmeyer said the district never questioned him or Jurnee. She now attends another school.
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