A white New York school teacher allegedly accused of putting up a racially offensive image in a classroom claims she was a victim of racial discrimination herself.
In 2019 an image circulated of a collage displayed in a classroom at Roosevelt Middle School in New York that sparked outrage among the community and school district officials.
The photo, part of a larger classroom display of teachers and students, showed a pair of nooses under a caption that said “back to school necklaces,” alongside the words, “Ha Ha,” “#YES” and a smiley face.
The school district blamed an “isolated group of teachers” for the collage and said “appropriate action” had been taken, according to The Daily Beast.
Years after the incident, Nancy Jones Doering filed a lawsuit against the school district, revealing herself as one of the teachers accused.
I looked for a picture of this collage, because I come from a family of teachers and it seemed like a teacher suicide joke to me, not a student suicide joke or a racist joke (still dumb and probably psychologically harmful to kids that young, but not malicious).
I found this article in which the person who initially publicized the collage said this:
So…. no benefit of the doubt necessary.