He is claiming that the incident infringed on his daughter’s constitutional rights.
A father has filed a $1 million dollar lawsuit against his daughter’s school after a teacher cut her hair.
Jimmy Hoffmeyer is suing Michigan-based Mount Pleasant Public Schools for the incident, which he claims infringed on the 7-year-old’s constitutional rights and was an example of racial discrimination against his daughter, Jurnee, who is mixed-race.
According to Insider, Hoffmeyer alleges that his daughter was “intentionally inflicted with emotional distress” when the teacher decided to cut her hair without the consent of her parents.
He is also suing the school for assault and battery.
The lawsuit has been filed against a librarian and a teaching assistant at the school, along with the school district.
The incident happened in March this year, with Hoffmeyer filing the lawsuit on Tuesday, September 14.
Initially, a classmate had cut Jurnee’s hair without permission. Hoffmeyer complained to the school, before taking his daughter to the hairdressers to get an asymmetrical haircut. The lawsuit claims that just two days later, she came home from school with almost all of her hair cut off.
The Associated Press reports that when Hoffmeyer told his daughter that no child should do that to her, she replied: “But dad, it was the teacher.”
The father claims that the school district “failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline, and supervise their employees.”
"I asked what happened and said 'I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair,'" Jimmy Hoffmeyer said at the time to her daughter Jurnee. "She said 'but dad, it was the teacher.' The teacher cut her hair to even it out." https://t.co/TgMheVkahV
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 17, 2021
A third-party investigation then found that whilst the member of staff had broken school policy, she had not acted with racial bias. Although it found that the teacher in question should be disciplined, it concluded that she should be able to keep her job.
But Hoffmeyer claims the investigation didn’t interview either him or Jurnee. The 7-year-old has since moved schools because of the incident and situation.
In response to the lawsuit, the president of the school board has defended its handling of the case, saying: “We are confident that the facts will prevail given our district’s appropriate and aggressive response to the incident and the findings of the third-party investigation that was conducted.”
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