Arkansas School Won’t Let Black Student Be Sole Valedictorian

Kymberly Wimberly says McGehee Secondary School is preventing her from being her class’s sole valedictorian because of her her race (h/t Think Progress).

Wimberly says that despite earning the highest G.P.A. of the Class of 2011, and being informed of it by a school counselor, “school administrators and personnel treated two other white students as heir[s] apparent to the valedictorian and salutatorian spots.”

Wimberly’s mother is the school’s “certified media specialist.” She says in the federal discrimination complaint that after her daughter had been told she would be valedictorian, the mother heard “in the copy room that same day, other school personnel expressed concern that Wimberly’s status as valedictorian might cause a ‘big mess.'”

…Bratton says she tried to protest the decision to the school board, but defendant Superintendent Thomas Gathen would not let her speak, because she allegedly had “filled out the wrong form. Instead of ‘public comments,’ Gather [sic] said Bratton should have asked for ‘public participation.'” The superintendent told her she could not appeal his decision until the June 28 school board meeting; graduation was May 13.

The Wimberly family seeks punitive damages for constitutional violations, and an injunction declaring her sole valedictorian of the school’s Class of 2011.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.