The Black School Cafeteria Cafeteria accepted the payment of $ 60,000 to resolve the federal discrimination laws he after suing her obligations related to disciplining children, because white teachers allegedly did not like “sound, tone or tenor of her” black voice “.

60-year-old Vanessa Bowie-Middleton worked in school kitchens and a canteen for 17 years and in the school district of Washoe’s Ferry near Reno since 2019, when the school head, Heidi Gavrilles, entered the kitchen in January 2022 and gave her a disturbing directive .

From then on, the director did not want Bowie-Middleton, who was a kitchen manager in Bohach Elementary, would admonish or disciplined any of the students in the cafe, because some white teachers “did not like the path (Bow-Middleton) and /or her accent or dialect and feel, That a black woman should not give instructions an unruly cafe, “says her lawsuit.

On the same day, Gavrilles also told her not to speak in the school PA system, which Bowie-Middleton claims that she often ordered noisy students to stop or cleanse, because their dinner period ended.

Asked why the director later said the local NAACP leader Lonnie Feemster, which is why “White teachers did not want to hear a black voice that tells children what to do”, in response to the statement that the plaintiff issued.

Until then, Bowie-Middleton says that “she loved her work”, and particularly children-browning with them, laughing with them, learning their names, playing music that she enjoyed on the speaker they brought.

The unusual in the dining room was frequent, including screams and screams, intimidation, throwing food and occasional fights, and for years Bowie-Middleton learned cope and discipline unruly students, the obligatory part of the work, and the one she did, and such, and such which she did claims that she was trained by many WCSD supervisors.

When she was employed in Bohach, the then manager Kitchen Terri Braunworth, who is white, he told her that if the teachers were not present, when the students were in the cafe, she must “act to maintain safety and safety” before the problem escalated and the students The criticism was found. In the school district, “it was drilled by all the kitchen managers” that “she was not able to stand up” and let or not it’s unmoved.

Braunworth confirmed in a press release made in court that it was often obligatory for a dietary worker and a kitchen manager to “improve children’s behavior” and that Bowie-Middleton “was always right” when she admonished children who “especially loved Vanessa.”

The claim claims that “grossly racist directive” to “suppress the ability of a black kitchen to perform professional duties in order to take into account the racial prejudices of white school teachers who feel uncomfortable with the sound of her” black voice ” “.

The criticism quoted an e-mail by White Kitchen, collaborator Jennifer Frith sent to the plaintiff’s superior, wherein Frith wrote that she overheard the school head, say Bowie-Middleton “and that” the tone and language of the black person differ from a white person. “

The claim claimed that the director’s directives significantly modified the terms of its employment and constituted the descent of treatment based on the breed in violation of the federal law on civic rights in her lawsuit submitted in the American District Court in Nevada in July 2024. The black worker in the school kitchen became Forbidden to discipline students, the criticism argued that similarly situated white employees The kitchen, including her subordinates, could proceed the admonition and discipline of students who behaved badly.

The criticism noticed that Bowie-Middleton received only good work grades during work in the school district, including in February 2022, which recognized her “effective” or “highly effective” in all areas, including supporting positive morale and commitment in students.

When the emails between Bowie-Middleton and her supervisor and the district curator did not solve the problem, the district conducted an investigation that claims that the claim did not cover interviews with any of the teachers who allegedly complained about hearing her voice.

In April 2022, she received a letter from the district that her criticism was “closed” and that the curator did not find “sufficient evidence” to justify his allegations of treatment in a different way and devoid of obligatory skilled duties, because she was black.

Bowie-Middleton was “shocked, devastated and the sick” by school discriminatory practices, to the extent that she could not sleep, suffer migraines and abdominal pain and have become a suicide, says the criticism.

Demoralized, she stopped talking and interacting with students. She was unable to get a response from school officials that teachers had an issue with her breed and the way she spoke and says that she was “humiliated”, treated as worse than other school employees.

Meanwhile, when the students were energetic in the dining room, she could “only stand as”, allowing improper behavior to proceed, and “hope that the teacher or her white subordinate employee … will appear magically”, observe the behavior and taking motion.

In August 2022, seven months after she was “silenced” by the director, Bowie-Middleton says that she was informed by a district worker “from Blue” that he would not be forbidden to discipline discipline of improper behavior of students.

At this point, Bowie-Middleton suffered “indignant discrimination”, sought therapy and incur related costs and expenses, says her lawsuit. In January 2023, she left her work in Bohach Elementary and stays employed by the School District of Washoe County in the Mendive Junior High School as a nutrition worker. Her lawsuit strives for the jury to find out compensation compensation and canopy her legal costs.

In court warehouses, the school district claimed that Bowie-Middleton did not accuse the facts to permit the court to seek out a “legitimate conclusion” that it suffered different treatment because of her race and did not discover a reliable claim for relief.

The conclusion of the district for dismissal of the claim filed in October 2024. He argued that disciplining students had never been a “important function” of her work and contained examples of the positions of the positions of nutrition employees and the roles of the kitchen manager to support this dispute.

Defense lawyers also stated that Bowie-Middleton’s criticism “did not identify any specific people from outside their protected class, which were treated differently in similar circumstances”, but only offered “allegations drawing out” charged with “unimaginable and unrelated hyperbole.”

In response, Bowie-Middleton released in December in her court, opposing the application for dismissal that the descriptions of the defense position consisted in the brave: “This description of the position is not a full statement of the necessary functions, obligations or requirements of work”, but represented “minimum level of knowledge , skills and/or skills. The management maintains the freedom to add or change the typical duties of the position at any time. “

Descriptions of the position “explain that the kitchen manager is obliged to discipline unruly students, if he is instructed, trained to this and is expected that he will do it by his supervisor,” she said her report.

This was climbed by Braunworth’s statements, her former manager, who wrote that turning to the fallacious behavior was “part of the work”, and from Marcia Iverson, a former eating worker at WCSD, who worked with Bow-Middlleton at the District Secondary School. Iverson, who is white, also stated that “the necessary part of their work was” admonishing unruly students to try to maintain order “in the cafe, noticing that when Bowie-Middleton did it” she was clear and simple to know. “

By announcing the settlement of her client in the amount of $ 60,000 with the school district on Monday, lawyer Bowie-Middleton, Terri Keyser-Cooper, said in a press release: “Can you imagine, in 2022, the director of the school district, telling the black employee to tell Do not talk because white teachers “uncomfortably” heard her black voice! What next? Distinguishing black employees to use various drinking fountains, because some white teachers do not want them to drink from the same fountains they drink? Or telling black employees to avoid using some toilets because of the discomfort of white teachers associated with sitting on the same toilet on which they could sit? Fortunately, WCSD saw wisdom in solving this matter. “

On Tuesday, the School District of Washoe issued a press release to Reno Gazette-Journal By refusing “all allegations in this unilateral press release by Mrs. Keyser-Cooper”, which “is also very aware that the settlement is not a acceptance of responsibility by the district, which further strengthens how its improper press release is that her press release She is the same attempts to convey her disputed accusations as facts when no judge or jury ruled her benefit. In fact, the only agency that conducted an investigation, the Commission for Equal Employment Opportunities, did not make any arrangements against the district. “

“There are many factors that play the decision to settle, and the decision of the district to decide was only a business decision to put our students, families and employees,” the statement continued. “This decision also allows the parties to move forward with their employment relationship. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Keyser-Cooper decided to interest the interests of the office before the interests of the parties. “

Keyser-Cooper, an experienced lawyer for civil rights in Reno, then told Gazette Journal that the district should apologize to Bowie-Middleton, “without offending her and not calling her a liar.”

“Perhaps WCSD believes that it is the 1950s and includes Jackson, Mississippi or Montgomery, Alabama,” said Keyser-Cooper. “From shame that one of its directors can be so scandalously racist and present such strong evidence, and yet the district denies any offenses.”

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