A Farmingville, New York, mother has filed a discrimination claim against a white teacher accused of categorizing a Black teen’s hair as “ethnic” and her own hair as “American” and “normal.” The parent said her daughter, as the only African-American girl in the class, was left feeling embarrassed by the teacher’s comments.
The 17-year-old senior was attending a cosmetology class at Sachem East High School in Long Island, New York when the alleged comment was made about her hair in the fall semester of 2022.
The remarks made the teen feel un-American, the suit claims.
The girl’s mother, Cindy Covington, hired civil rights attorney Andrew Lieb, who filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of her teen with the New York State Division of Human Rights. The claim asserts her teen’s civil rights were violated by the teacher.
During the class, hair texture came up, and the teacher said the teen’s hair was “ethnic.”
“[My daughter] said, ‘So, if my hair is ethnic hair, then, you know, what type of hair do you have?’ And she told my daughter she had American hair, she had normal hair. She said to her, ‘Well, you know I’m American too?” Covington explained to CBS News.
“There are different textures of hair,” Covington said.
“I would love to know — what is American hair?” she continued. “What is that? I really would love to know. What is ‘normal’ hair?”
According to Covington, despite her reporting the remarks to the school’s principal, this was not the only time the teacher made the comments.
“There have been incidents after incidents in reference to where she’s been made to feel uncomfortable as the only brown girl in the classroom,” Covington stated to local news outlets.
The teacher went on to explain that “ethnic” was the terminology used in the industry. Covington believes the term is antiquated and should not be used in the classroom.
As a result of…
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