A student claims he was the frequent target of racial bullying at a middle school in Melrose, Massachusetts, and the school did nothing about it despite repeated attempts for help.
Nita Holder and her son David Palacios spoke exclusively to NBC10 Boston on Monday night about a civil complaint that has been filed with the Department of Education. It does not seek financial compensation but rather it would require the district to put extensive measures into place like trainings and counseling to make sure no other child has to deal with racial hate.
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"I’ve been called the N-word a few times, it all started out with jokes then they started to take it too far,” David shared of what happened to him.
Holder says there's nothing funny about the racial bullying her son experienced at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School.
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“He would come home crying and say "why are they treating me different? They treat me different and they don’t treat the other kids this way,'” she said.
David says he tried reaching out to the students hurling racial slurs at him through texts, where he said in one, "u make me feel uncomfortable stop texting me nothing would happened if you didn't say the N-word multiple times.”
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The student replied, "I have only said it once David. But I can name 100 people in this school that say it on a daily basis”
David also says he reached out to his teachers: “I was telling them this and this person have been calling me the N-word and they never did anything about it.”
“There was an eighth grader and he had called me an N-word in the hallway and then pushed me.”
Holder says after several incidents where the bullying escalated to physical violence, she reached out to the school to offer solutions.
“The vice principal reached out to me, told me it happened and I said, 'hey why don’t we do a restorative justice process?'" she recalled.
After the racial bullying started to affect her son academically, Holder filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of him against Melrose Public Schools with the Lawyers for Civil Rights with USDOE's Office of Civil Rights.
“My grades started to get a little bit down so I had to get removed from my classes and go to different classes downstairs,” David shared.
“What motivated me to do it is injustice," Holder said. "I’m a Black woman. I’m raising two Black men.”
Melrose Public Schools said in a statement that they were just informed of the complaint Monday.
"We look forward to cooperating with the Office of Civil Rights to provide more information about the steps that the District took to address these incidents described in this complaint," Interim Superintendent John Macero said. "We take any allegations of individual or systemic discrimination very seriously in Melrose Public Schools, and we are committed to fostering a safe and equitable educational environment for all."
Holder says Macero's statement is "laughable."
"He was aware of what happened to my son and he did not reach out, he did not offer any type of support,” she said of Macero.
Holder says she removed her son from the school, and he's been thriving academically at a new school in Boston.
