An Iowa teacher received $425,000 in damages from the Ottumwa School District after repeatedly being called racial slurs by students who were not reprimanded

Ottumwa High School/Photo/Facebook

An Iowa teacher was recently awarded $425,000 from the Ottumwa Public Schools after the courts determined that the school enabled students’ racist behavior toward the teacher. The teacher sued, alleging harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and violations of the federal Civil Rights Act. 

The teacher, Robert Bender, a black employee, started working for the district in 2021 and alleged that staff, especially the principals, did nothing to reprimand students who called him racial epithets.

According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, Bender said staff who witnessed the incidents did nothing to challenge the students' behavior. Bender worked for the district in multiple capacities, as a behavior instructor, teacher, and the high school’s junior varsity boys’ basketball coach. He later served as a junior high school girls’ track coach and a high school special education teacher, according to the ICD.

The former teacher said that during three months, several students called him racial epithets and even wrote the word ni**** on sticky notes that they gave to him.

Despite reporting the issue to the school district and his superiors, the district tolerated the behavior, even after assuring him the harassment would not continue. According to the lawsuit obtained by ICD, the building's Principal, Jerry Miller, later told Bender that while he took no offense to the n-word, he understood why Bender would.  

The lawsuit cited another example of Bender being verbally harassed by a student at a bus stop, after a student allegedly directed the n-word at Bender in front of staff and parents and, a few weeks later, used the word again in front of Miller. The lawsuit states that the student was reportedly not removed from class and, to Bender’s knowledge, was not disciplined.

The lawsuit also argued that while students were suspended for days for incidents such as slamming a door in the Assistant Principal's face and calling a teacher a "fat man," many of the building administrators failed to reprimand students for calling him racial epithets.  

In addition to the Ottumwa School District, the lawsuit also named building administrators Jerry Miller and Dana Warnecke, an assistant school principal.

To subscribe to Volume 82, click the link. To follow our Instagram, click here; for TikTok, click here!