Lawsuit Claims Black Girl Forced to Use Separate Bathroom Due to Race [View All]

Lawsuit Claims Black Girl Forced to Use Separate Bathroom Due to Race

By Monica Lewis
BlackAmericaWeb.com

A little less than two weeks before Christmas, Euniecia Snyder filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, Michigan claiming that her daughter was subjected to discriminatory practices and racial taunts. In the complaint, Snyder, filing on behalf of her daughter Realite Peebles, said the girl was forced by school administrators to use a separate bathroom and was repeatedly teased by fellow classmates because of her race.

Realite, who was a third-grade student during the 2004-2005 school year, was the only black student the Frankfort-Elberta Public School System’s lone elementary school. She was one of only four black students in the entire district, which has approximately 600 students.

According to an Associated Press report, Snyder said she was told Realite had to use a separate bathroom to make other students feel more comfortable. She also claims that school administrators failed to protect Realite from taunts and threats brought forward by her white classmates.

District Superintendent Thomas J. Stobie and elementary principal Jeff Tousley are listed as defendants in the claim, along with the district and its seven-member board of education. Stobie said that allegations in the suit, which claim civil rights abuses and intentional infliction of distress, are totally false.

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