Black mom sues L.A. Unified over cotton-picking project at elementary school, suit says

[Celerity]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-15/black-mother-sues-lausd-over-cotton-picking-project-at-elementary-school



A Black parent filed a civil rights lawsuit last week against the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Board of Education, saying that a cotton field was set up at an elementary school in 2017 that was intended to teach students about the experiences of slaves.

Rashunda Pitts said her 14-year-old daughter, who is referred to as “S.W.” in the lawsuit, experienced emotional distress as a result of the project at Laurel Cinematic Arts Creative Tech Magnet that her social justice teacher said was to help students “gain a real-life experience as to what the African American slaves had endured,” according to the lawsuit, which also named the school’s then-principal and social justice teacher as defendants. Pitts said that in September 2017, she noticed her daughter had become “very quiet and reserved” when she used to “vibrantly share her day with her mother,” the suit states.

One day, as Pitts was dropping off her daughter at Laurel Cinematic Arts Creative Tech Magnet, she saw a cotton field in front of the school and called the office to speak with the school’s principal, Amy Diaz, who was unavailable, according to the lawsuit. Pitts spoke with Assistant Principal Brian Wisniewski, who explained that S.W.'s class was reading Frederick Douglass’ autobiography and the cotton field was created so students could have a “real life experience” of slavery, the lawsuit says.

After Pitts expressed her disappointment with the project, Wisniewski agreed and said the school’s principal would reach out to Pitts, the lawsuit states. Diaz listened to Pitts’ request for the cotton field to be taken down in 24 hours but said that the school couldn’t accommodate such a quick turnaround, saying it could aim for the end of the week or the following week, but couldn’t make any promises, according to the lawsuit.

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[Effete Snob]

1. This article is misleading

Last edited Mon Aug 15, 2022, 05:20 PM - Edit history (1)

You might wonder why she filed a suit "last week" over an incident which happened in 2017.

As it turns out, she actually filed suit in 2019 over this incident.

The Complaint, filed in 2019, is here:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.739202/gov.uscourts.cacd.739202.1.0.pdf (corrected link)

The docket is littered with filing errors made by the plaintiff's attorney, and a general inclination to kick the can down the road:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14648184/sw-v-board-of-education-for-los-angeles-unified-school-district/

Finally, the court had enough of the delays and attempts to generally avoid going forward with the suit:


https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.739202/gov.uscourts.cacd.739202.49.0.pdf

In July 2021, over eight months ago, the Court continued trial of this matter to May 24,
2022. (Min. Order, ECF No. 46.) In that Minute Order, the Court noted that the parties had
failed for the second time to comply with the Court’s orders regarding timely filing of pretrial
documents. The Court indicated in a bold paragraph at the end of the Minute Order that “the
pretrial documents identified above must be filed no later than April 25, 2022. Failure to timely
comply with this Order may result in dismissal of this action, without further warning, for lack
of prosecution and failure to comply with Court orders.” (Id. at 2.) This was not the first such
warning the Court had provided the parties. (See Order Cont. Dates, ECF No. 45.)
On April 25, 2022, the day the pretrial documents were due, Plaintiff filed two
documents with the Court. The first is a stipulation to continue the trial and pretrial deadlines.
(Stip., ECF No. 47.) The second is a statement regarding the status of settlement negotiations.
(Statement, ECF No. 48.)

Today is April 26, 2022. As of today’s date, the Court has not granted the parties’
stipulation. Accordingly, whether or not the Court would grant the parties’ stipulation, pretrial
documents are once again due, and the parties have, for the third time now, failed to file their
pretrial documents by the deadline ordered by the Court. Pursuant to the Court’s prior warning,
this is grounds for dismissal of the action.

...

The settlement statement simply indicates that the parties participated in an unsuccessful
mediation on July 9, 2020 (almost two years ago), followed by generalized assertions, devoid of
further dates or details, suggesting that Defendants are considering a recent settlement demand.
(Statement ¶¶ 1–2.)

These statements do not constitute good cause why the parties remain unprepared for trial
after having been provided several months to conduct depositions and prepare their pretrial
documents, after having already twice missed the deadline to do so and having been informed
by the Court that a third failure would result in dismissal. Most attorneys work on multiple
matters at a time, and if due to his or her caseload an attorney is unable to find any time at all
over the course of eight or more months to work on settling a case, it is reasonable to question
whether that attorney is able to diligently litigate the matter. Model Rules of Prof’l Conduct r.
1.3 (Am. Bar Ass’n 1983).

Federal courts try cases; federal courts are not holding pens that preserve complaints
while parties take multiple years to reach a settlement of straightforward actions such as this,
where only a single-student, single-incident set of claims is at issue. The incident in question
took place almost five years ago, and the evidence and testimony only continue to grow stale as
the parties delay resolution of this controversy.

------

As can be seen from the docket, linked above, the plaintiff filed a request for reconsideration, which was also denied.

I do not see a re-filed version of this case. That doesn't mean it wasn't refiled. However, the court is likely to be as unimpressed witha re-filed version of this case, particularly if the relevant limitations, if any, have run by now.

But this case was actually first filed in 2019.

[Ms. Toad]

16. Thank you.

This is a bit bizarre.

There are dozens of copies of the article, all posted within the last 3 days. The earliest I've found is dated 8/12/22 at 3:27 AM. None of them reference an earlier suit. Some, at least, suggest they spoke with the school. The response (no comment on ongoing litigation) suggests it is still ongoing.

The comment from the claim, quoted in the article, is indeed verbatim from the 2019 suit.

I've seen a single story redated, which created a furor on DU as if it were new. When I've gone fact-checking there's only been one recent and a whole bunch of old stories. This story seems to have taken on a life of its own, 3+ years after the fact.

Thanks for digging out the court documents.

[Effete Snob]

20. The dismissal was fairly recent

I don't see a notice of appeal on the docket, which might be another explanation.

[Ms. Toad]

21. Just curious about what triggered the flood of articles.

If it was an appeal, I would have expected mention in the article of the prior suit.

[Effete Snob]

23. The child's parent/guardian appears to be well-connected to LA media

I do not know how one gets a KNBC television reporter to show up on 24 hours notice, but I found that to be an interesting detail.

[Ms. Toad]

27. Interesting, indeed.

If the parent triggered this new flood of articles, I feel sorry for the child - who surely can't be happy as a young teen being the center of this kind of attention once it finally died down from the original suit.

[alphafemale]

28. So a great program helping some urban children maybe gain some food independence

Is probably doomed now because one parent got a stick up her behind and decided to make a scene.

Learning to grow a little of your own food is something kids generally take a good bit of pride in.

[alphafemale]

2. I do not see how it is a bad idea for kids to understand how brutal it was.

Most kids don't even know cotton has thorns in it.

[marybourg]

3. Based on my experience as a parent,

I bet most kids don't know cotton is a crop, to be planted and harvested. I still remember one of my kids being shocked when he discovered milk came from cows.

[Effete Snob]

4. I am in my late 50's

The first time I ever saw a cotton plant up close and personal was last month.

[marybourg]

7. Yes, I saw my first one in AZ in my 50's..

The didn't grow much cotton in the Bronx.

I'm not sure why the objection to the hands on lesson, except for the normal parental desire to shield our children from the worst ugliness humans can perpetrate. I think that desire is one we have to fight against. We can't learn the lessons of history without knowing the history.

[BlackSkimmer]

15. I grew up in NC, and I've seen a lot of cotton fields.

But I do remember the first time that it made an impact on me. My parents (both British) were equally fascinated and we all got out to handle the cotton when we drove by a field. Amazed at the bolls that a person would have to take out of the cotton ( a process Eli Whitney eliminated.)

I remember mom asking me if I could imagine picking that stuff (fun to us that day) in the sun day after day. We quickly agreed a NO. But I love seeing the cotton fields around here. You don't see them every year because of rotation, but it's fascinating to me still (as it was then) that our sheets and towels come from this crop grown in a field.

I think now most of NC cotton is sold overseas, not sure about that, but this used to be a huge cotton area. The mills, long after slavery, exploited whites as well as blacks. It's a fascinating history. The bales in the fields are always something I notice to this day.

Children should learn about all this kind of history, the bad and the good.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. Most kids don't know what it's like to be hit with a whip, either. Should they experience that?

[alphafemale]

11. That is not even close to what happened.

But accuse me of whipping children because they might see and touch cotton.

yeah.

Run with that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. I accused you of nothing; just asked a question.

they might see and touch cotton.

There's a big difference between passing a cotton boll around the room and asking children to pretend they slaves.

[alphafemale]

29. That is not even close to what happened.

But go ahead with "double down" bs

[Demsrule86]

26. I don't approve of this sort of thing...waste of time first of all. And I would be pissed if

I had to pick cotton for a school project...it is ridiculous. Read some of the books available. There are some good ones. This helps with language, spelling, and comprehension.

[Farmer-Rick]

5. Well, if the kids were being forced to work

In the cotton field or garden then I could see it being stressful for a child. Especially if other children take the role of master and verbally harass the children identified as slaves.

It takes 160 days to grow a crop of cotton to harvest. This had to have been planned very far in advance. And the bolls that the cotton comes out of can cut you and hurt you. Good leather gloves are needed to protect your fingers and hands.

But the article said they were working in the plant. The plant is where you remove the seeds and bolls and separate out the cotton. So, it's not clear what they had the kids do.

But forced labor of any kind could be traumatic for anyone.

[Effete Snob]

6. The complaint does not even allege anyone was forced to do anything

This is not just any school, btw...

20. On that night, Ms. Pitts talked to her daughter about the Cotton Picking
Project. Her daughter told her that her social justice teacher, Defendant Villanueva,
required the students to “pick cotton” to gain a real-life experience as to what the
African-American slaves had endured. S.W. further explained that discussion of
the project in school terrified her and she horrified at the idea of having to “pick
cotton”. She told Ms. Pitts that Mr. Villanueva did not force her “pick cotton” but
that she had to watch the other students “pick cotton” while she tended to other
crops that were being grown. S.W., who is also a 4.0 student, told her mother that
she was afraid to tell her about the Cotton Picking Project because she did not want
her teachers to get mad at her and possibly retaliate against her for complaining by
giving her bad grades or failing to acknowledge her in the honor roll assembly as
the school had done before.

21. The following day, Ms. Pitts arrived at Laurel Span School with Angie
Crouch of NBC Universal. Prior to their arrival, Ms. Crouch had contacted Laurel
Span School to receive a statement regarding the cotton-picking project. Ms.
Crouch received an email from Samuel C. Gilstrap, Public Information Officer for
LAUSD stating:


“We regret that an instructional activity in the garden at
Laurel School was construed as culturally insensitive.
Tending to the garden where a variety of fruits, vegetables
and other plants grow is a school-wide tradition that has
been in place for years and has never been used as a tool to
re-enact historical events. When school administrators
became aware of a parent’s concern about the cotton plant,
they responded immediately by removing the plant. L.A.
Unified remains committed to providing a safe, welcoming
and nurturing learning environment for all students.”

-----------

Your child has been traumatized by being asked by their "social justice teacher" at a magnet school to watch other students pick cotton in order to understand directly how difficult it is. So, to minimize your child's trauma, you show up with a television news crew the next day, because your child is afraid of "retaliation" for having made a complaint "as the school had done before."

When one's first-level approach to a conflict is having the local NBC affiliate on speed-dial, then I have to wonder how interested one might be in problem solving.

[Igel]

10. Now I really don't understand.

OP: "Cotton field."

Your post: "Cotton plant."

School's location is relevant. It has limited space (at present) that isn't paved over. If there's a "variety" of other things growing in the limited space, "field" seems ruled out.

Strictly speaking, cotton apparently self-pollinates so it could be possible to have a single plant produce bolls.

When I was in school we didn't pick cotton, but we were given a pile of bolls to sort through and clean. (Pointless lesson in my case. A few times my mother decided to go to a pick-your-own place and we spent a day in late July or August picking string beans. Spending the day bending over picking string beans in the hot sun for 10 hours is something that few would consider a fun time.)

[Effete Snob]

22. That is quoted from the complaint

The Complaint refers to a "cotton field". The statement of the school, quoted in the Complaint, refers to a "cotton plant". The entire Complaint is linked upthread and provides a wealth of other details and allegations.

[Jilly_in_VA]

24. We did that too

Sorting through some cotton bolls. That wasn't fun at all. It was in a class about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, to show how important the cotton gin actually was. Made a lot of sense at the time.

[Effete Snob]

25. Ah, WeHo between Melrose and Santa Monica Blvd.

I am not entirely familiar with the geography of Los Angeles.

Looking like 2 bd, 2ba, 1,202 sqft for $1,295,000 on Zillow. Is that a lot?

[Farmer-Rick]

13. Well if she wasn't forced....

And wasn't ridiculed as a designated slave. What's all the to do about? I don't get it.

[alphafemale]

8. Writing an essay or taking a test or gym class could be seen as forced labor.

Last edited Mon Aug 15, 2022, 06:37 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't want the kids actually harvesting a crop.

But 40 minutes or so to know there was no shade and how hot it would be.

There was no bathroom.

You squatted when and where you could.

To try and pluck some cotton without poking your fingers.

To see the size of the bags people were expected to fill several times a day.

[Horse with no Name]

14. I'm white. I grew up in Arizona as a child of a farmer

I have hoed weeds from cotton and help pick cotton, I have planted comfrey by hand as well as an entire repertoire of gardening/farming.
I personally do not think that this is a traumatic event…not taking away from experiences and feelings unless of course the kids were stratified into masters and slaves.
I think it is unfortunate that what might have been a great learning experience was derailed—possibly by the way it was initially handled.
However, I do feel badly for the girl if she was traumatized over it.

[Horse with no Name]

18. I never mentioned whips?

I think it was a good thing with the crops.

[alphafemale]

19. Maybe wrong post.

Someone accused of me of some nonsense.

[tavernier]

30. Oh for Pete's sake

Maybe I could sue my third grade teacher for asking me to observe a lunar eclipse. Maybe I was emotionally traumatized from wondering if the moon would get eaten up. I don’t remember now, that was sixty some years ago, but perhaps I could find some nutty lawyer who could claim that my psyche was scarred for life, and we could collect a fortune.

America! What a country!