A white principal in a predominantly Black and Hispanic middle-school has been accused of barring an English teacher from teaching her students about Black History Month, according to the New York Daily News.
Principal Patricia Catania reportedly pulled English teacher, Mercedes Liriano, 45, aside while she was teaching students lessons on the famed Harlem Renaissance Movement in literature and art in the 1920s, and instructed the teacher to stop teaching Black history lessons.
Liriano, who has spent a decade teaching at Intermediate School 224 in the Bronx, defied the principal’s instructions and returned to her room to keep teaching her students about the Harlem Renaissance period. The next day, students and teachers wore all black in protest of the principal’s ban.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a press release statement, called the principal’s actions a “disgrace and insult” and plans to hold a rally at the school Monday.
“(IS 224) needs to know we stand with this teacher and we will be there to do whatever we need to do,” Sharpton said.
The Rev. Kevin McCall, crisis director at the National Action Network, said Catania should be replaced.
The trouble at IS 224 comes after The News reported other shocking claims of racism and cultural insensitivity in city schools.
Patricia Cummings, a white teacher at Middle School 118 in the Bronx, was pulled from the classroom Feb. 1 after it was revealed that she made black students lie face-down on the floor — and then stepped on them — as a lesson on slavery.
And white administrators at Christ the King, a Queens Catholic school, angered students, alumni and activists for refusing to allow a black teen named after Malcolm X to put the civil rights leader’s name on his class sweatshirt.
In the wake of those stories, protesters have descended on City Hall calling for expanded anti-bias training and the creation of an office for culturally responsive education within the education department.
