Students Sue School District After Being Disciplined for ‘Start Slavery Again’ Petition

A group of Missouri students who were disciplined over a racist petition have taken legal action against their school.

According to the Associated Press, four freshman at Park Hill South High School were punished earlier this year after one of them created a Change.org petition that called for the return of slavery. The incident reportedly began during the football team’s bus ride on Sept. 16, when a biracial student began “bantering” with a Black student. The AP reports at one point during the back-and-forth, the biracial student created the online petition titled “Start slavery again.” After the page was shared on social media, three other students—two of whom are white and the other half white, half Asian—commented on the petition.

The complaint states the student who posted the petition was expelled, the other three were suspended for 180 days, and the Black student was not punished. According to the suit, the students say school officials violated their First Amendment, due process, and equal protection rights.

“Fourteen-year-olds sometimes unwisely shoot their mouths off, instantly regretting it but causing no harm, no disruption,” said the student’s attorney, Arthur Benson II. “But here it was adults who unwisely over-reacted, causing the disruptions and they are now trying to strip these boys of their entire ninth grades.”

The Park Hill South High School principal is named as a defendant along with the school district, members of the school district board, the district’s superintendent, and the district’s director of student services. The plaintiffs are demanding they be reinstated and have the punishments removed from their records. They’re also seeking unspecified actual and punitive damages.