A judge has dismissed a civil rights/negligence suit filed against Los Angeles Unified and the Board of Education by a Black woman on behalf of her daughter, in which the woman alleged the girl suffered emotional distress after a cotton picking field was set up at her Hollywood school in 2017 as an instructional tool about what life was like for slaves.
Rashunda Pitts alleged the defendants discriminated against her plaintiff daughter, who is identified only as S.W. in the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint. But on Tuesday, Judge Gail Killefer dismissed the case. She heard arguments on the district’s dismissal motion on Nov. 9 and then took the case under submission.
LAUSD lawyers maintained, among other things, that the suit’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations, a lack of showing of threats, intimidation or coercion and the immunity of school officials.
According to the suit brought in August 2022, S.W. has “uncontrollable anxiety attacks and has experiences bouts of depression when she thinks about the cotton picking project.”
The plaintiff, now 19 years old, attended Laurel Span School in Hollywood in the fall of 2017 and initially was enthusiastic in sharing her daily school events with Pitts, but her daughter became more sullen as the semester went on and attributed it to being tired, the suit stated.
Soon thereafter while dropping her daughter off at the school on North Hayworth Avenue, Pitts saw a cotton field, the suit stated.
“Bewildered as to why a cotton field would be growing in Hollywood, let alone on public school property, she called the front office to speak with the principal about the cotton field,” the suit stated.
Pitts eventually talked to Assistant Principal Brian Wisniewski, who “enthusiastically informed her that the children in S.W.’s class were reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and that picking cotton was one of the experiences that he wrote about in the autobiography,” the suit stated.
Wisniewski further explained that the cotton field was planted so that the students could have a real-life experience of what it was like to be a slave by picking cotton themselves, the suit stated.
“Completely incensed with the idea that the school would have her daughter and other children pick cotton as a school exercise to identify with the real-life experience of African-American slaves, Ms. Pitts expressed her disappointment and hurt in regards to the culturally insensitive and incompetent project,” according to the suit.
Pitts’ daughter later confided in her that her social justice teacher required students to pick cotton to learn what it was like to be a slave and that while she was not forced to participate, she had to watch other students doing so, according to the suit.
S.W. had a perfect grade-point average and was initially reluctant to discuss the project for fear of retaliation from teachers, the suit stated.
No school officials obtained the parent’s permission for their children to participate in the cotton picking project and parents were not told about the idea before its implementation, the suit stated.
According to the suit, the LAUSD later released a statement stating it regretted that an “instructional activity” at Laurel Span School was construed as culturally insensitive.
The LAUSD’s statement was an acknowledgment that the school district recognized that the school’s cotton picking project was discriminatory and harmful to the students, the suit alleged.