noose
Two teachers from a school in Long Island, New York, were fired and one teacher was suspended after they had a display of images depicting nooses in their classroom. This is a representational image of a noose during a demonstration outside Old Bailey court in London, Feb. 26, 2014. CARL COURT/AFP/Getty Images

Two teachers from a middle school in Long Island, New York, were fired while one teacher was suspended with pay Tuesday for displaying noose images in a classroom.

The Roosevelt Union Free School District board voted Tuesday night to fire the two teachers, who were not named. They were non-tenured teachers at Roosevelt Middle School and had been working there for around three years. The third teacher was a tenured teacher who worked with the school for almost two decades. All three women were placed on administrative leave prior to the vote. The third teacher is awaiting a hearing by a state judge, the date of which wasn’t announced.

All three teachers were white and they could possibly lose their teaching licenses.

The pictures were displayed at the school around Feb. 7 and the three teachers were suspended with leave soon after. It was a part of a larger collage that was on display in a classroom and depicted two nooses under the words “back to school necklaces” and it also had the words “ha” and “#yes” on it.

The School Department, in a statement, said it was aware of the “inappropriate conduct” of an “isolated group of teachers” at the middle school. It added that the board initiated an investigation into the incident and that “appropriate action” was taken against the people involved. It was unclear how long the images and collage were on display at the school or who made it.

The collage was displayed at a school wherein 2017-18, the student body was around 55 percent Hispanic or Latino and 44.6 percent black or African-American, data from the New York State Education Department showed. The collage was heavily criticized by Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen who also said, “This imagery that was on display in a Roosevelt Middle School classroom is undoubtedly racist and should not be tolerated in our Town, or any other community. A clear message needs to be sent that there is simply no place in our schools and in our society for this type of racist, hateful and insensitive imagery.”

Arthur Mackey Jr., the chaplain of the Roosevelt Chamber of Commerce, called for the firing of the teachers when the incident was revealed. He also told the members of the board that the incident showed the need to revive a “strong emphasis on black history” in schools.

Speaking about the tenured teacher’s suspension and pending hearing, Mackey said, “The school board’s decision is helping us move forward in the right direction. Of course, the teacher that has tenure has to go through a hearing, but we’ll pay close attention to that.”

When parents were informed of the collage, most of them demanded the immediate firing of the teachers during a meeting held within a week of the incident. Several parents called it a “hate crime” and said the district should ensure the teachers were not allowed back in the district.

However, there were some parents who thought it was a harmless joke and “it probably didn’t have anything to do with African-Americans…but at the same time, they could still draw a connection,” Savitri Lekhram, a parent and community member, said.

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