After a month of postponement, the Oxford School Board finally held the student disciplinary hearing for Tatyana Harris on June 10, as it relates to the role she played in the video of an altercation between herself and a white male student that went viral on social media back in early May.
The video of the incident, which took place after school hours included threats, foul language and racial slurs.
Afted three-and-half hours of deliberation, the board voted unanimously that Harris engaged in misconduct. The resulting suspension, the period of which has now expired, will remain part of her school file and Harris will have to sign a behavior contract at the start of the next school year.
According to the district’s attorney Rick Kroopnick, Harris was charged by school administration for violating section 37 ‘verbal assault? under the Student Code of Conduct. Administration recommended a long-term suspension of 20 days from May 8 to the end of school, which was June 5.
‘The issue for the board this evening is whether or not the student did engage in the act of misconduct. If so, she has already served the suspension,? Kroopnick added. ‘The question is whether or not the discipline should be removed or remains a part of the student’s file.?
Harris? attorney H. Wallace Parker whose been lead council for the (Oakland County branch of the) NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People) for 14 years, said he has never in his entire existence ‘seen a community, a school system that has developed an institutional form of racism toward African Americans.?
‘This is absolutely one of the worst situations I have ever witnessed,? Parker said, who noted that he believes the only people not welcomed in Oxford are African Americans.
‘It is astonishing that you can spend taxpayer’s money, bring people from China, establish residential facilities for them, but you cannot allow this black child to attend school here without being insulted like this and treated like some subhuman. I would be ashamed,? he continued. ‘Anything I can personally do to cut off every dime you get, federally and statewide I have every intention of doing that. I hope they cut every penny off so you will not be able to bring not one person from China, from Germany or any place else as long as you’re treating African Americans in the fashion in which you are.?
Board Treasurer Dan D’Alessandro, strongly disagreed with Parker.
‘What happened here is not indicative of Oxford,? he said. ‘I think this board and this district have gone out of our way to be inclusive? We believe that everybody has a right to an education. We feel it’s important for a student coming from any district and we feel it’s important for our students.?
D’Alessandro noted that he felt ‘horrible? for the racial slurs that were said towards Harris and he agrees that it should have never happened.
‘I want you to understand, that is not Oxford,? he added. ‘In your opening statements you threw the entire district and the entire community of Oxford (under the bus) and that’s not who we are.?
Oxford Middle School’s Dean of Students Kristie Saterstad was the first to be interviewed. Board Vice President Carol Mitchell asked Saterstad how they determined that Harris violated section 37, ‘verbal assault? as opposed to ‘intimidation? in section 35 or ‘bullying behavior? in section 36.
‘Because she had spoken a verbal threat to inflict physical injury,? she responded. ‘This whole incident fell in a lot of the categories, so (OMS Principal) Mrs. (Dacia) Beazley (and I) had to look at what best fit and we thought that 37 encompassed all of it.?
Section 37 defines verbal assault as ‘any willful spoken threat to inflict injury under any circumstances which create a reasonable fear of imminent injury, coupled with the apparent ability to inflict injury, against another student, district employee, volunteer, or contractor on school property, on a school bus or other school related vehicle or at school-sponsored activity or event.
In the video that was posted on social media , which the board was given a copy of the transcribed timeline, Harris is seen verbally assaulting the white student by telling him ‘I’ll beat the (expletive) out you and have my brother beat the (expletive) out of you.?
According to Beazley during the investigation process, she never received a written statement from Harris, so they had to rely on what they had, which included testimony/interviews from students who witnessed the incident. Along with the 37 second video clip that was on Harris? phone, the 2:12 video posted on social media and the school’s surveillance video which included before and after what occurred prior to the recordings made on cell phones.
Parker argued that his client received a concussion during the altercation.
‘I’m telling you from the videos I saw, the 37 clip Tatyana had, the video posted on social media and then the school surveillance tape, I never saw Tatyana fall to the ground,? Beazley responded.
However, whether or not Harris did sustain a concussion was deemed irrelevant to the board because it had no bearing on their decision whether or not Harris violated section 37 of the school code of conduct.
In her own testimony, Harris said the whole incident started when the white male came to where she was, looking for his friend. She said she and two of her friends were busy singing a song, which included the ?’B?-word? and the male interpreted it that, that is what she was calling him.
‘He asked if I called him a ‘B? word and I said no. He told his friends that I did but then they started whispering,? she said. ‘Then I heard him say the ‘N word,? then I turned on my phone and started recording it.?
Harris said when he asked if she was recording him, she denied it because she was scared and that was when he walked over and attempted to smack the phone out of her hand hitting her hand instead, which made her angry. She admitted that she walked up to him after he had walked away from her and attempted to get him to hit her again, so she would have it on video.
Harris, who’s been attending Oxford since fifth grade, said her problems with the male student, date back to sixth grade, but she never reported it in sixth grade because she was scared.
‘I’ve reported him multiple times (this year) and nothing has been done about it,? she added. ‘So, I stopped being scared and I did something about it myself because nobody else would.?
Board President Jim Reis asked if she could have run to the office or out a door to avoid the situation.
‘Going to the office… why? When they’re not going to do anything,? she responded. ‘They haven’t done anything when I’ve reported it multiple times.?
Schweig asked Harris if she felt her actions were ‘instigating? the other student or ‘trying to provoke him or recreate (the scenario).?
Harris said she wasn’t trying to recreate anything.
‘When I was recording it he wanted to be a man and hit me. So when everyone else was recording it, I wanted him to be a man and hit me in front of everybody else,? she said. ‘I wanted him to hit me so the other cameras could see it.?
Shumaker said that wasn’t the definition of a man but a coward.
‘I have four sons,? Shumaker noted. ‘I would be extremely disappointed if they thought manhood meant hitting a female.?
While she hadn’t seen any of the video, Shumaker called what she read in the transcription of one of the videos ‘disgusting.?
‘This is 2015. We are way past as a country, these kinds of (racial) remarks. I am sorry you had to hear that. That’s obviously not our responsibility for what was said, but I want to apologize to you that you had to hear something like that,? she told Harris. ‘You are God created, you are valuable. This country needs every one of you. I want to be clear about that, because that’s how I feel in my heart.?
While she feels bad about what was said, she still believes Harris is accountable for her actions.
‘As individuals we have to take responsibility for whatever role we play in escalating the situation,? she said. ‘I wish you just would have walked away because we have to look at your behavior tonight.?
Schweig agreed.
‘What we try to do in schools and with a discipline situation is have it be a teachable moment. At in no time in our society are we able to respond to a verbal threat, such as road rage or anything that rises to the level of a terrible incident and take the law into our own hands. I understand, I’ve worked with kids my whole life, it’s a lot harder when you’re young to understand those things and see how you need to act, but it needs to be reported. To say that, if I would have reported it that nobody would have done anything, so ‘I took matters into my own hands.? I don’t think that would be supported by any legal entity for a client to be offered that opportunity.?
Schweig also noted that their decision had nothing to do with whether Harris was a school of choice student or her race and nationality, but based on the student code of conduct and what rules were broken.
‘That’s the way it is in life? Hopefully we can all learn from it that everybody is accountable for their actions,? he added. ‘The other student was held accountable for his actions.?
While the district could not specifically state what the male student in the altercation received specifically for discipline, due to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) laws, disciplinary hearings for three students occurred on May 14 and only one student was related to the altercation incident. According to board minutes: Student 1 was suspended for 180 days; Student 2 was suspended for 180 days with the allowance for him to petition the school board for reinstatement for the second semester of the 2015-2016 school year and Student 3 was suspended from Oxford until the end of this school year and the first semester of the 2015-2016 school year.
Parker told this reporter that he does plan to take the district to circuit court as it relates to racism.
Superintendent Tim Throne said he was disappointed with comments that were made by Parker in the beginning.
‘How can you learn that much about a community and a school district in that short of time frame to say the comments that he did? That was just very disappointing from my perspective from the get go. I was also disappointed that they just kept trying to talk about a whole bunch of different things other than what we were there to talk about,? he said.
As far as a threat of a lawsuit, he said if they feel the need to sue the district there is nothing he can do to stop them, but he is proud of how the board handled the hearing overall.
‘I did feel good in the end that the board did come to the correct conclusion that the student was guilty of breaking the student code of conduct. I thought the discipline they invoked was also appropriate,? Throne added. ‘From that perspective what is there to sue the district on??