A Black school cafeteria worker accepted a $60,000 payment to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit after being stripped of her job duties involving disciplining children because white teachers allegedly didnât like âthe sound, tone or tenor of her âBlack voice.ââ
Vanessa Bowie-Middleton, 60, had worked in school kitchens and cafeterias for 17 years and for Washoe County School District since 2019 when the school principal, Heidi Gavrilles, came into the kitchen in January of 2022 and gave her an upsetting directive.
From now on, the principal did not want Bowie-Middleton, who was the kitchen manager at Bohach Elementary, to reprimand or discipline any of the students in the cafeteria because some white teachers âdid not like the way she spoke and/or her accent or dialect and felt a Black woman should not be giving instructions to unruly cafeteria students,â her lawsuit says.
When asked why, the principal later told a local NAACP leader, Lonnie Feemster, it was because âwhite teachers did not want to hear a Black voice telling children what to do,â according to a statement he provided to the plaintiff.
Misconduct in the lunchroom was frequent, including screaming and yelling, bullying, throwing food and occasional fights, and over the years Bowie-Middleton had learned how to handle and discipline unruly students, a necessary part of the job, and one that sheâd been trained to do by multiple WCSD supervisors, she claims.
When she was hired at Bohach, then-kitchen manager Terri Braunworth, who is white, told her that if teachers were not present when students acted out in the cafeteria, she must âact to maintain safety and securityâ before the issue escalated and students were harmed, the complaint says. It had been âdrilled into her by all kitchen managersâ in the school district that âshe was not to stand idly byâ and let misconduct go unaddressed.
The lawsuit contends that the principalâs âblatantly racist directiveâ to âstifle a Black kitchen managerâs ability to perform her job duties in order to accommodate the racial prejudices of the schoolâs white teachers who are uncomfortable with the sound of her âBlack voiceâ maintaining orderâ among students