Lipe addresses news release regarding discrimination lawsuit
Davidson Local reached out to Davidson County Schools (DCS) Superintendent Dr. Emily Lipe regarding an article published by Legal Aid NC. The article states their ‘Our Right to Education Project’ filed a federal complaint on March 22, 2022 on behalf of a 14-year-old Black girl who attends Oak Grove High School in Davidson County.
In the article, the student’s mother is quoted as saying, “I moved my family to Davidson County with the hopes of giving my children a better quality of life,” D’Shean Smith, the parent of the student named in the complaint, said. “Unfortunately, our relocation has been a living nightmare due to the discrimination and unfair treatment my oldest daughter experienced at Oak Grove. I am still in disbelief by some of the things my daughter experienced at school simply because of the color of her skin.”
Further notated are ‘“the incidents of racial harassment and discrimination spanning over the course of three months, and include, but are not limited to:
Failing to discipline a group of white students for openly discussing pronunciation of the word "n*gger" in our client's presence and then calling her "a n*gger";
Punishing our client for going to the bathroom without permission while menstruating, while not punishing a white student who accompanied her;
Further punishing our client for expressing frustration about the incident; and
Failing to aid our client or allow her to call her mother while she suffered an extended anxiety attack caused by the discriminatory treatment.”
Lipe responded to our inquiry with the following statement: "While we are aware of a media release that states a federal complaint has been filed against Oak Grove High School, we have not received official notification of this. As always we will work with our legal team to address this appropriately once we are notified by the federal government that a complaint has been filed."
