African-American Students Sue School for Being Harassed Because They Were Acting Too White

This is just bizarre.

Two Williamsburg County students and members of their family have reached a $150,000 settlement in what may be the first Title VI lawsuit based on claims of intra-racial discrimination in South Carolina public schools. Lawrence "Larry" Kobrovsky, a Charleston attorney who focuses his practice on constitutional law and school issues, said the parties settled after a female student's claims of sexual and racial harassment at a Salters school went to trial in U.S. District Court in Florence.

The suit was one of two against the Williamsburg County School District and school officials. The other suit, filed on behalf of the student's uncle, was dismissed. The two students each received $50,000, and two family members who filed the suits on their behalf received $25,000 apiece, according to Kobrovsky. The settlements were reported to South Carolina Lawyers Weekly last week.

"What made this unique is that this, as far as I know, is the only Title VI case ever brought in federal court when it's an intra-racial hostile environment," Kobrovsky said. Both students were African-American, and so was most of the elementary school's student body, according to Kobrovsky. Most students were also black at the high school that her uncle attended. The problem was the culture of rural Williamsburg County, he said. "You have a culture where to act like you want to do well in school is considered acting white. And that is part of why we're saying that it was racial, even though the students were all of the same race because they weren't acting how the others thought they should be acting as members of that race," Kobrovsky said. The uncle testified that racial separation in the county generally meant white students attended private schools while black students attended public schools. At the public schools, he said, fitting in meant not being what his family was: "churchy," "upright" and wanting education, as another witness put it, according to a trial transcript. "You see, it's a crime to act white, or it's a crime to be white," the uncle testified. Harassment, he testified, made him feel that "we are just dumb, we're just not people, we're undergraded, we're degraded, and we're not even supposed to be in this world."

Wiggers everywhere must be licking their chops.