USM defends ousting students
Michelle Obama’s nephews rejected
University School of Milwaukee is standing by its decision to reject two students following complaints of racial bias from their parents, Craig and Kelly Robinson, the brother and sisterin-law of Michelle Obama.
The school has filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the suit brought by the Robinsons, who said their children were wrongfully rejected from the school after Kelly and Craig raised concerns about the climate for students of color.
In the court filing, attorneys for USM said Head of School Steve Hancock was within his rights when he told the Robinsons their children weren’t welcome back at USM for this school year. The school contract notes students may be dismissed for “any reason” in the “best interests of the school.”
The Robinsons, in their lawsuit, have argued the school breached the contract by failing to make a “reasonable” decision about rejecting their children, third and fifth graders who the school agreed were model students.
“That tells you and us that no one is safe in USM because on any day of the school year they can dismiss a family for any reason,” Craig said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “That is not in the best interest of the school.”
The Robinsons are seeking financial compensation from the school, an independent pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade private school in River Hills, which charges up to about $30,000 per year for tuition. The family pledged to give any monetary award to initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.
A hearing for the dismissal motion is scheduled for July 6.
School slams Robinsons as they gain attention
When the Robinsons filed their complaint in April, they took their story to Good Morning America and brought national attention to their website, donttrustusm.com.
In a public response at the time, Hancock claimed his decision to reject the students had nothing to do with the Robinsons’ complaints related to equity. Rather, he said he took issue with the way the Robinsons’ communicated, characterizing it as “persistently disrespectful, bullying, or harassing behavior.”
Craig Robinson replied on Twitter, saying the response proved the school “is unwilling to accept responsibility for the toxic culture it has created around issues of race.”
“Any parent thinking about sending
their child to USM should be alerted that the school deems the expression of legitimate concerns about racial and socioeconomic bias to be ‘disrespectful,’ ‘bullying’ and ‘harassment’ ... and grounds for expulsion without warning,” Robinson tweeted, days before a birthday shout-out from his sister to her 21 million followers.
Attorneys from USM fired back in their motion to dismiss the case, accusing the Robinsons of filing the suit “as part of a media campaign intended to tarnish USM’s
reputation as one of the nation’s premier independent, college-preparatory schools.”
Representing the school, attorney Lindsey Davis said the school has decided to reject students based on a parent’s conduct one other time in the last 10 years.
Davis said most of the Robinsons’ concerns with the school were regarding other issues with virtual learning and academics, outside of the bias concerns.
In the school’s motion to dismiss, attorneys argued that the Robinsons had been warned that the way they were communicating could result in their students being rejected from the school. Asked in an interview with the Journal Sentinel whether the Robinsons were explicitly warned their children might not be welcomed back to school, Davis said they were.
The Robinsons, in an interview Friday, said that never happened. Conversely, they said Hancock expressed gratitude for their input.
“We ended the calls cordially as if we were helping him get better at his job,” Craig said. “So when we saw that — it’s just abjectly false.”
Attorney: “I don’t think the school regrets” Underground Railroad simulation
The school has also publicly disagreed with the Robinsons’ concerns about bias in school lessons.
In one example, a Thanksgiving word search activity included the word “plantation,” a word that can conjure connotation with farms where enslaved people were forced to work.
Davis, who works for the law firm Quarles & Brady and has represented the school for years, said the school “concluded that there was no racial or socioeconomic problem” with that worksheet or others.
In their lawsuit, the Robinsons also mentioned an Underground Railroad simulation that had gone on until about a decade ago, before they joined the school. They said fourth-grade students were told to dress and act like “runaway slaves,” navigating dark classrooms and hallways while staff members acted as “slave catchers” and tried to catch them.
Davis said some of the descriptions of the simulation were “not consistent with USM’s understanding” of it, but said she was not aware of which details specifically were off. A school spokesman has not answered questions about these details.
Asked if the school regretted that simulation, Davis responded: “I don’t think the school regrets it. I think that the school does always look to continuously learn and improve, and that’s the marking of a great educational institution. It’s one that’s not only teaching its students, but it’s learning itself.”
She said the school at the time thought it was an “effective method” to teach history but ended it “based on feedback.”
“It has adjusted that the methods in which it’s teaching about those important topics,” she said.
Calls mount for changes at USM
The Robinsons weren’t the first to share stories of bias at USM.
Through Instagram accounts Black at USM and Marginalized at USM, many have shared stories anonymously about discrimination they experienced as students based on their race, religion or sexual orientation.
In 2020, six recent graduates sent a letter to USM administrators about “missteps in the treatment of students of color and other marginalized communities.” Among the incidents described: a white student in the 2019-20 school year had told a Black student, “Shut up before I leave you like Emmett Till,” referencing a 14-year-old who was tortured and lynched in 1955.
Most of the letter was a lengthy supply of resources for addressing racism in schools. The six graduates called for mandatory cultural competency training for all students and staff.
Such training is one of the Robinsons’ demands now, along with adding diversity to the school’s leadership and staff.
Dozens of current and former students and staff members signed on to the Robinsons’ call to action for USM outside of the lawsuit, calling on the school to “reverse USM’s culture of bias and insensitivity.”
Davis said the school hasn’t made any changes in direct response to the Robinsons’ letter but is continually “committed to diversity and inclusion.”
“It demonstrates that commitment in a variety of ways, including by having a dedicated director of equity and student success, student groups that are centered around diversity leadership, parent groups for parents of students of color,” Davis said.
The school has repeatedly denied requests for an interview with Hancock, the head of school.