School librarian who cut biracial girl’s hair keeps job as officials claim no racial bias
A white elementary school librarian who cut the hair of a biracial girl will be allowed to keep her job despite an outcry over the incident.
The staffer was accused of performing a “modern-day scalping” by a parents’ group, but school district officials in Michigan announced that after a third-party investigation into the incident, the librarian did not act with racial bias and therefore will keep her job.
“We truly appreciate the support and patience by our students, staff and families while an independent, third-party investigation was conducted regarding an incident at Ganiard Elementary School,” the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said in a statement on Friday, MLive reports.
“As your board, we have made every effort to address this matter with the seriousness and care it deserves and with the transparency our community expects.”
The incident occurred in March when seven-year-old Jurnee Hoffmeyer arrived home from school with the hair on one side of her head cut off.
She told her father, Jimmy Hoffmeyer that another student had cut her hair on the school bus with scissors taken from the classroom.
Mr Hoffmeyer took his daughter to a barber, who gave her an asymmetric haircut to help even out her hair.
Two days later, Jurnee returned home from school in tears with all of her long curly hair cut down to within a couple of inches of her scalp.
Jurnee told her father that the library teacher, who is white, had cut off the rest of her hair. Mr Hoffmeyer is Black and white, and Jurnee’s mother is white.
On Friday school board officials claimed: “It’s clear from the third-party investigation and the district’s own internal investigation that MPPS employees had good intentions when performing the haircut.
“Regardless, their decisions and actions are unacceptable and show a major lack of judgment. The employees involved have acknowledged their wrong actions and apologised.”
The librarian has been placed on a last chance employment notice and will be dismissed if there is any future infraction. Two other employees were aware of the incident but did not report it and have been officially reprimanded.
Mr Hoffmeyer told the Associated Press that neither he nor his daughter were questioned as part of the investigation.
“Who did they talk to?” Mr Hoffmeyer asked on Friday when the results of the investigation were announced. “Did they really do an investigation?”
Jurnee was removed from the school by her father and now attends classes elsewhere.
A month after the March incident, Midwest delegate for the National Parents Union Bernita Bradley, who is working with Mr Hoffmeyer, described the incident as a “modern-day scalping” and says that Jurnee has been left traumatised.
The NPU is working to raise awareness of the Crown Act, a bill that bans race-based hair discrimination, which is already law in some states.
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