Harassed by my student
Fired after I reported it: teach
An award-winning Bronx charter school teacher sounded the alarm on vile sexual harassment by one of her students — and then was fired by vengeful administrators anxious to avoid a scandal, an explosive lawsuit charges.
Former Bronx Lighthouse Charter School instructor Marcia White says in her Bronx Supreme Court suit that the first sign of trouble came in December 2016 when three seventh-grade boys said they wanted to “run a train” on her — meaning they wanted to take turns having sex.
One of the students was particularly aggressive, repeatedly telling White “he wanted to take her out on a date and perform sexual acts on her,” according to the suit filed Aug. 6.
The 31-year-old social studies teacher says she sent Principal Travis Brown an email detailing the behavior. Brown replied that she should be “mindful” of what she writes because the charter school network has access to emails, according to court papers.
“We have to protect our students,” he allegedly wrote.
The email was just a sign of things to come, she says in her suit seeking $15 million in damages. The group of students apologized, but the most aggressive boy, who was 12 when the harassment started, wouldn’t relent, she said. At 5feet-9 he was 2 inches taller than White.
“When he saw me in the hallway he’d say, ‘I want to take you out Ms. White, you look good.’ It was inappropriate comments all the time,” White told the Daily News. “He would come into the hallways and circle me and look at me and look at me up and down — telling me he’s going to buy me jeans, constantly asking me out on dates.”
Last February, the student’s harassment escalated, White said. She began wearing hoodies and baggy pants and stopped wearing makeup to avoid his attention, she said.
White complained to administrators and got the student removed from her class for three weeks. But at a meeting with the boy, Lighthouse’s director of culture, Chrissandra Mosby, told him “it was OK to think sexual thoughts about White, but he simply could not say them,” the suit says. White called the guidance “completely ineffective.”
Soon thereafter, Brown told White she should “repair” her relationship with the student, the suit says. He also said she should be “mindful” of calling the conduct “sexual harassment,” according to papers. Such a phrase, Brown said, meant White was calling the student a “sexual deviant,” according to the suit.
White fired off another email to Brown and Mosby on Feb. 13. “I’m not his peer for him to see in the hallway and yell, “Damn, Ms. White, you stay looking good!’ ” she wrote.
“If this is norm behavior amongst 8th grade, then perhaps we have a bigger issue: An excuse or characterization for sexual harassment,” she said.
The following day, Brown called White into his office, banged on a table and said she needed to be “mindful” of what she writes, the suit says.
She was fired in March without explanation, according to papers. The charter school’s Board of Trustees vowed to launch an investigation into her termination after complaints from students and parents, but no action was actually taken, White says.
Brown didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The episode has left White — who won a “teacher of the year” award in 2017 — traumatized. “I went into a depression. I’ve been going to therapy . ... There are times where I feel like I cannot manage what I’m feeling. I call 311 to speak with someone on nights when I can’t go to sleep.,... ,” said White, who has since landed a job at another charter school.
Her attorney Brian Heller said the student wasn’t to blame. “She’s not being critical of the student. It’s the school’s unwillingness to take action in the situation. This is a student who had emotional difficulties. And when she persisted and asked for help and put it in writing – she got fired right afterwards,” Heller said.
A spokesman for Lighthouse, which operates four Bronx charters, declined to comment.