A white teacher in Greenville, Texas was suspended after school officials say she put her foot on a Black student’s neck and sent a picture of her doing it to the boy’s mother.
Officials with the Greenville Independent School District suspended the teacher on Wednesday (April 21) after the photo circulated social media.
According to multiple reports, the teacher allegedly sent the photo to the 10-year-old’s mother on Tuesday (April 20), shortly after the verdict was handed down in the Derek Chauvin trial, the boy’s aunt, Lakadren Moore, told Fox 4 News.
According to Moore, the teacher told students she would put her foot on their neck if they didn’t get their work done. When the students didn’t believe her, Moore says her nephew got down on the ground and that’s when the teacher put her foot on his neck and a photo was taken.
“You don’t do that to a 10-year-old. You don’t do that to a child. Period,” Moore told the outlet. While the district confirms the authenticity of the photo, they haven’t corroborated what the family says happened, and says the photo was “staged.”
Greenville ISD Superintendent Dr. Demetrus Liggins told the outlet that he didn’t need to have any additional information to be “highly disgusted.”
“I was highly disgusted by without having any additional information,” Dr. Liggins said. He sent a letter home to parents, telling them the incident was being investigated, though he’s unsure if the teacher will be fired from her job.
“At this point, I don’t have all of the details of what occurred. So I can’t speak to that. So it will ultimately be my decision,” Liggins said. “So I really have to get the final details of what actually occurred and make a decision based on that.”
The family reportedly did not send their child to school the day after the incident. His uncle, Derrick Jackson, told Fox 4 News, that regardless of race, the incident shouldn’t have happened.
“If my nephew was white and she was Black, it still wouldn’t have mattered,” Jackson said. “It was wrong. You don’t play like that.”
Photo: Getty Images