2 Black Students to Receive $40,000: Settlement With Visalia Unified Comes After Allegations of Harassment.
By Tim Bragg, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
May 12–Two black students who filed a federal lawsuit over alleged racial harassment at Golden West High School have reached a settlement with the Visalia Unified School District.
While the settlement provides the students with $40,000, their attorney said the district also agreed to improve its policies against discrimination and to augment its staff and student diversity education programs.
A federal judge is expected to make a final approval of the settlement in the suit brought by brothers Keith and Kevin Pankey next week, said their attorney, Douglas Hurt.
The lawsuit contended the teenagers were called racially offensive names on a regular basis in public areas and classrooms at Golden West High School, and that administrators and teachers at the campus did nothing to stop it. The lawsuit also says the Pankeys were physically threatened and told they would be lynched by fellow Golden West High School students.
Hurt said he and the boys’ family believe the school district is making a lot of progress in preventing incidents similar to what the Pankeys experienced.
“We don’t want what happened to the Pankeys to happen to anyone else,” Hurt said. He said winning a monetary judgment against the district wasn’t the focus of the lawsuit, but deemed the money awarded through the settlement “satisfactory.”
Hurt declined to comment further about the case.
Under terms of the settlement, Keith and Kevin Pankey will each receive $20,000. Court papers say the district will pay Hurt about $13,500 for attorney’s fees and costs.
Officials at the Visalia Unified School District didn’t return calls Friday. The district’s attorney, John Rozier, declined to comment on the settlement earlier. The students’ mother, Colleen Pankey, also declined to comment Friday.
Pankey and her husband, College of the Sequoias assistant football coach Irvin Pankey, pulled their children from Golden West High School and had them transferred to Visalia’s Mt. Whitney High School, where both are seniors who have played on the basketball and football teams.
They said the harassment began when their children began attending Golden West High School in August 2003 and didn’t end until they transferred from there two years later.
Some of the incidents claimed in the lawsuit include:
On one occasion, a white student allegedly yelled an offensive remark at Keith Pankey in the presence of an assistant principal, who said, “Excuse me?” upon hearing the statement. The student said “monkey” and the assistant principal allegedly said “OK” and took no action.
A group of white students allegedly approached Keith Pankey on campus and aggressively displayed a white rope tied into a noose for lynching, which Keith took as a physical threat.
The Pankeys and other black students reported harassment to two other assistant principals.
On one occasion, one assistant principal allegedly had Kevin Pankey write down a list of specifics regarding the harassment but allegedly told Kevin no action would be taken.
This is not the first time Golden West High School has been the target of a harassment lawsuit.
Former Golden West student George Loomis sued the district in 2001, alleging that a teacher and classmates harassed him in fall 1999 because he is gay. Loomis was awarded $130,000, and the settlement forced the district to conduct anti-harassment training.
The reporter can be reached at tbragg@fresnobee.com or (559) 622-2417.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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