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Head and shoulder of female teacher with mathematics equations on the chalkboard, Cape Town, South Africa

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A Queens, New York, school is under fire for being racist against its Black teachers,

Federal prosecutors sued the city’s Department of Education on civil rights violations claiming they failed to stop a Queens principal from harassing and demeaning black teachers, says DNA Info.

According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the DOE turned a blind eye to Pan American International High School Principal Minerva Zanca comparing one of their school’s Black teachers to “a gorilla in a sweater” with “f—ing nappy hair” and demeaned another for having “big lips.”

Yes, it is 2016–and Bharara stressed that.

“It is nearly unthinkable that, in this day and age, one of the largest and most diverse school districts in the United States would allow racial discrimination and retaliation to flourish.  Yet that is what we allege happened at Pan American International High School,” Bharara said in a statement Thursday.

The DOJ lawsuit states that the principal targeted the only three teachers in the school district and pressured the assistant principal to give two of them unsatisfactory reviews and when he refused Zanca’s requests, he claims he was threatened.

Now, Zanca isn’t the only one being sued, Superintendent Juan Mendez, Zanca’s boss, is also being named in the lawsuit for hiring the principal and allegedly ignoring the discrimination, the website noted. 

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the city’s Education Department repeatedly refused to take disciplinary action against the principal, allowing her to stay, DNA noted. 

Zanca who is also a member of the Department of Education, retired in 2015 and still works part-time in a Brooklyn school as a counselor.

We will keep you posted on the outcome of this lawsuit.

The DOJ Sues The NYC Department Of Ed Over Racist Principal  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com