It may be 2021 but one elementary in Atlanta is acting like it’s the Jim Crow era based on the principal's policy of segregating children in classrooms based on race.
A black mother whose child attends the Mary Lin Elementary School was shocked to find out the principal implemented this policy last year. She only discovered it was happening when she asked to place her child with a teacher she thought would be a better fit.
"[The principal] said that’s not one of the Black classes, and I immediately said, ‘What does that mean?’ I was confused. I asked for more clarification. I was like, ‘We have those in the school?’ And she proceeded to say, ‘Yes. I have decided that I’m going to place all of the Black students in two classes,’" mother Kila Posey told WSB-TV, according to Fox News, recalling her conversation with the principal.
"We've lost sleep like trying to figure out why would a person do this," Posey said. "First, it was just disbelief that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me — a Black woman. It's segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can't do it."
Posey has filed a federal discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights against the school.
"Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that you cannot treat one group of people differently based upon race, and that is what is going on at Mary Lin," said Posey’s lawyer, Sharese Shields.
Atlanta Public Schools said it “does not condone the assigning of students to classrooms based on race” and has since taken “appropriate actions.”