Christian student claims he was racially harassed for years

Through Maria Spiller

October 19, 2024

The student alleged that administrators at Oaks Christian School in West Lake Village were aware of the bullying but did nothing to adequately stop it.

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A black student at Oaks Christian School in West Lake Village, California, claims he was racially harassed for years as a student. The student and his family have sued the school seeking damages for the incidents.

The student, who is a minor and remains anonymous in court documents, claims the school was “negligent and careless in allowing students to harass, humiliate and bully the plaintiff with impunity.” The Los Angeles Times reports.

According to the lawsuit, the family also claims the school violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by allowing the discrimination to continue and failing to take adequate action to stop it. The incidents described in the lawsuit are disturbing acts of racism. Other students at Oaks Christian School reportedly downloaded a smartphone app that made knocking sounds from speakers and played them when a black student walked by.

The lawsuit filed against the school in Los Angeles County County Superior Court continued to allege that students held a mock slave auction among themselves in the cafeteria, openly discussing how much the black student plaintiff would be worth if sold. They even asked him about his physique to determine their price. There was another example where a student held a piece of fried chicken over the boy’s head and challenged him by saying, “I know you guys like this.”

The lawsuit stated that at one point several students threatened to lynch him. In response to the lawsuit, Oaks Christian released a statement on October 18. The school alleged that when the student informed staff of the racial harassment late last year, administrators immediately began investigating the complaint and expelled three students from the school. related to the complaint. The statement said the school has “monitored the situation frequently” and that no other racist incidents have been reported to the school.

“And while these actions of student-to-student harassment are unacceptable and were addressed quickly and decisively, the actions of a handful of students do not reflect the culture of Oaks Christian School or our broader community,” the statement said. “To that end, Oaks Christian will continue to aggressively address any form of discrimination in the school community, anywhere and wherever it occurs.”

However, the lawsuit filed by the student tells a different story. The plaintiff is currently a senior and despite the continued racial abuse he has suffered, he plans to complete his senior year at Oaks Christian.

In an interview with The Times, accompanied by his mother and lawyers, he recalled that the first racist incident occurred during an eighth-grade field trip to the Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon. He said several other students told him “to join them in the graves.”

The faith-based college reportedly didn’t do much to support him.

“I felt separated,” he said. “I was like, why me? Why did they feel it necessary to say that? I didn’t do anything to them.”

He acknowledged that he did inform Oaks Christian staff of the bullying, but the administration took no action to address the problems he experienced.

He opened up in the interview about an instance in which a school principal told him that his American history class would be reporting on slavery that day and that he would “brace himself” for inappropriate comments from his classmates.

However, by filing the lawsuit, the student hopes to bring about real change in the culture of Oaks Christian.

“I’m bracing myself for it to happen – I’m going to have to go through it so no one else will,” he said. “There has to be a change.”

“As this brutal behavior went unchecked, it created a toxic atmosphere at Oaks Christian School, where racism became normalized and students felt empowered to see how far they could terrorize prosecutors and other Black students.”

The atmosphere at Oaks Christian School left the black student feeling isolated and so emotionally burdened that he could barely concentrate on his academics. His mother says the student is now in therapy to help recover from the emotional damage.

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