Harper Lee's Town In Racism Suit
Townspeople from "Mockingbird" Setting File Discrimination Lawsuit
May 25, 2008
Racism allegations have recently turned up in a somewhat ironic place. Parents of some black students at Monroeville Junior High School in Montgomery, Alabama have filed a discrimination lawsuit against the school for allowing their children to be harassed and overly punished over their white peers. This city not only played a major role in this country’s civil rights movement but was also the setting of Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a story which explored race issues just like this real life case.
The Allegations
The parents of nine students are saying that their children have been called racial slurs and are more segregated from the white students with most unable to enroll in advanced placement and honors classes. They filed their lawsuit last August, but it has recently been thrown back into the spotlight by the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit targets the Monroe County Board of Education, the school’s principal Lana Wilson, county superintendent Dennis Mixon and the five members of the school board.
History Repeated
Monroeville is located 80 miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama, and is a popular tourist attraction to “Mockingbird” fans who come to see the restored 1903 courthouse which served as a major setting in the book. Each spring, the town puts on a two-act play based on the novel at that very spot. The junior high school holds 463 students from sixth to eighth grade, with 78 percent of the student population being black. Despite their large numbers, these are the students who are subject to the harsh treatment by their teachers.
The black students claim to be more harshly punished when they get into fights, especially with white students. While the white students were given short in-school suspensions, the black students were reprimanded with longer off-campus suspensions. They have also been punished more frequently for minor dress code violations, including violations which are not even in the school’s code of conduct, such as having missing or loose buttons on their clothing.
Instead of reprimanding white students for spitting out racial slurs to their black classmates, the faculty have been known to agree with the white students’ comments. When these allegations where first brought to the attention of the school system, they called the allegations “baseless” after reviewing discipline records.
Although it is set in the 1930s, “To Kill A Mockingbird” was released in 1961, three years before the Civil Rights Act was passed. A few years earlier in 1955, Montgomery was in the headlines for their famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was organized by the black population after Rosa Parks’ famous arrest. Lee’s novel helped bring another voice on behalf of those fighting for civil rights. The recent lawsuit in today’s age is showing that they are still fighting in Montgomery.
