A Colorado Springs family is suing Falcon School District 49 after their son’s fifth grade teacher allegedly disciplined him with a racist remark in May 2023, prompting the Black student’s parents to ultimately pull him out of Remington Elementary School.
Ryan Brown and his wife, Margaret Gay, filed a lawsuit Nov. 26 in the U.S. District Court against District 49, administrative leaders including Superintendent Peter Hilts and the school principal, Cassi MacArthur, and the teacher, Sheri Baron. The lawsuit alleges that Baron “racistly censured” their son — identified as “M.B.” — during an exchange with a friend and that the El Paso County district subsequently “discriminated and retaliated” against the family. Both claims were supported by findings from investigations conducted by the Colorado Civil Rights Division.
Brown, who is Black, and his brother previously received a $212,000 settlement from the city of Colorado Springs after the pair were stopped by police in 2015 and forced from their car at gunpoint without an explanation, according to reporting by The Gazette.
According to the lawsuit filed in November, Brown’s son said, “What’s up, brah?” to his friend while changing classes on May 4, 2023. The teacher, who is white, overheard the conversation and responded to M.B. with a comment along the lines of, “Oh no, we’re not going to have any of that gang talk at school.”
“The only reason that Defendant Baron associated M.B., who was 10 years old and had never been associated with a gang in any way, with criminality, was because he is (a) Black boy,” the lawsuit states.
Baron did not respond to requests for comment.
M.B. told his parents about Baron’s comment, and the following Monday, Brown met at the school with MacArthur, urging her to take M.B. out of Baron’s classroom so that he would not “be subjected to daily racism in a learning environment.”
The lawsuit states that MacArthur made an initial oral commitment to remove M.B. from Baron’s classroom and said she would need a day to execute a plan.
An email MacArthur sent to Brown the next day, May 9, acknowledged that Baron made the comment admonishing M.B. and telling him that students can’t use “any of that gang talk.”
“Mrs. Baron demonstrated complete ownership that she used a poor choice of words on that day,” MacArthur wrote in the email. “She was eager to apologize to (M.B.) for the way it made him feel and affirmed my belief that she genuinely cares about him and wishes nothing but success for him. When I supported by building context for her on how younger generations communicate in casual interactions nowadays, she was open to listening and expanding her understanding, acknowledging the generational differences in communication.”
MacArthur, however, said she would not pull M.B. from Baron’s classroom, the lawsuit stated.
The family continued to advocate for their son to be moved from Baron’s classroom and for his teacher to be fired. In a different meeting with Brown and Gay, MacArthur agreed to move M.B. to a different classroom.
But in an early-morning email she sent to Brown on May 10, MacArthur noted that M.B. would have to remain in Baron’s class through the end of the school year. She insisted that Brown and his wife would have to call the school to arrange any additional meetings with any staff and could not simply show up.
Brown, who had not seen the email that morning, walked his son into school to make sure Baron would no longer be his teacher. Brown told The Colorado Sun that MacArthur greeted him with a printed copy of her email and two armed security guards.
“It’s an intimidation thing,” Brown told The Sun. “It’s a response. It’s a show of force. She’s leaning in on her whiteness playing a damsel in distress” with “an evil Black man.”
“Any marginalized individual identifies with that,” he added. “They know exactly what this is. You’re trying to create a scene. You’re flipping it to make it seem like I’m the one in the wrong because I’m advocating for my son because you guys (screwed) up.”
The lawsuit asserts that MacArthur would not have had armed security with her if Brown was white.
Brown took his son home and kept him out of school the last two weeks of the year. M.B., now in seventh grade, has switched to homeschooling and online learning but also attends classes at Springs Studio for Academic Excellence, an online school through District 49, two days a week.
“I would like for him at the end of the day to have the option of going to college like anybody else and to be prepared for that,” Brown said. “When a kid goes to school, they should feel safe and respected. Just basic human decency.”
Racism or implicit bias?
Brown also filed a grievance with the district, which spurred an investigation by Hilts, the superintendent, according to the lawsuit.
In a June 16 letter Hilts sent to Brown, the superintendent wrote that Baron’s remarks were “out of line” and were “disrespectful and demeaning.”
“The central event, Ms. Baron characterizing (M.B.) and his friend’s greeting as gang-related, is indefensible, and nobody has offered a defense of that characterization throughout this process,” Hilts wrote. “We agree that the comment was inappropriate and violates our commitments to fair and caring treatment of our students. Where we disagree is on the degree of the violation and the appropriate response.”
The letter compares Baron’s comment to “sexist” language Brown allegedly used in addressing MacArthur by her first name while addressing men as “Mr.”
“I am making the point that even a person of your sensitivity and character can engage in a poor choice of words that become open to very negative interpretation,” Hilts wrote.
He added that Baron’s comment indicates “implicit bias” rather than an intentional “explicit racial epithet” and points to “an opportunity for personal improvement and an imperative for more effective organizational training.”
The lawsuit alleges that Hilts “made the ultimate decision to condone Defendant Baron’s racism” and claims that district leaders further retaliated against the family by severely constricting communications, allowing Brown to only communicate with Brad Miller, legal counsel for the district.
“Treating Mr. Brown as a threat that must be barred from communicating with School District 49 personnel further plays into racist caricatures that Black people who advocate for their children must be treated as threatening and aggressive,” the lawsuit states. “If Mr. Brown was a white person, he would not have been barred from communicating with School District 49 personnel.”
Investigations by the Colorado Civil Rights Division concluded that M.B. suffered “unlawful discrimination” and that the district did not respond “with the severity that the racially charged comment may have warranted.” Additionally, the division found that the district retaliated against Brown.
In an emailed statement, district spokesperson David Nancarrow wrote, “District 49 is gratified that the Colorado Civil Rights Division considered these claims carefully and ultimately declined to set them for a hearing. Accordingly, the Division dismissed Mr. Brown’s case. We now look forward to our day in court to defend our district and our colleagues from these baseless and sensationalized accusations.”
After the division’s investigation, the family and district entered into mediation July 16 but did not come to an agreement. The family’s attorney, Andy McNulty, of Denver law firm Newman-McNulty, LLC, said the division did not reject the case. The family had two options at that point: attend an administrative hearing in front of the division or receive the right to sue in federal court. The family opted to file a lawsuit.
This is not the first time that District 49 has had to address a complaint of racism. The district in 2010 had to enter into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice “following years of racist harassment and discrimination” within the district and among district officials, the lawsuit states. The district entered into another consent decree with the Department of Justice in 2014 after failing to comply with the original consent decree, according to the lawsuit.