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Black Student in Kansas Sues School District for Racial Discrimination
The dance team's choreographer told Camille Sturdivant that her skin was "too dark" to perform because she "clashed" with uniforms.
Keka Araujo
Camille Sturdivant has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Blue Valley School District for the abuse she was subjected to as a member of the high school dance team.
Sturdivant, who graduated from Blue Valley High School in Overland Park, Kan., in May 2018, has danced for practically her entire life. She's a national championship dancer. She's the epitome of Black excellence.
Sturdivant tried out for the Dazzlers dance team her freshman year, but didn't make it. Supposedly, freshmen usually didn't make the team. Sturdivant auditioned her sophomore year and earned a spot becoming one of two Black dancers on the 14-member team.
It appears that throughout Sturdivant's high school dance career, she was subjected to racist micro and macro aggressions, not only by her coaches, but her teammates. In 2017, Kevin Murakami, a former Dazzler and, at that time, a student at Pace University in New York, was choreographing a piece with Carley Fine, another coach of the team.
Murakami allegedly told the stunning dancer that her rich ebony skin was too dark and that it would distract the audience from the other dancers, if she performed. So he cut her from a contemporary dance number, which the team had been working on. He reportedly went further and said that her complexion clashed with the costumes.
'We felt it was systematic, that it was absolutely harassment'
Sturdivant's parents were livid.
"Our daughter came home and was a mess," Melodie Sturdivant said in the deposition filed in federal court. "She didn't even know how horribly wrong that was because she's never been told anything like that. We were stunned."
https://www.diversityinc.com/Organizational-Misbehavior/black-student-subjected-to-coachs-racial-abuse-sues-for-discrimination-in-kansas
Keka Araujo
Camille Sturdivant has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Blue Valley School District for the abuse she was subjected to as a member of the high school dance team.
Sturdivant, who graduated from Blue Valley High School in Overland Park, Kan., in May 2018, has danced for practically her entire life. She's a national championship dancer. She's the epitome of Black excellence.
Sturdivant tried out for the Dazzlers dance team her freshman year, but didn't make it. Supposedly, freshmen usually didn't make the team. Sturdivant auditioned her sophomore year and earned a spot becoming one of two Black dancers on the 14-member team.
It appears that throughout Sturdivant's high school dance career, she was subjected to racist micro and macro aggressions, not only by her coaches, but her teammates. In 2017, Kevin Murakami, a former Dazzler and, at that time, a student at Pace University in New York, was choreographing a piece with Carley Fine, another coach of the team.
Murakami allegedly told the stunning dancer that her rich ebony skin was too dark and that it would distract the audience from the other dancers, if she performed. So he cut her from a contemporary dance number, which the team had been working on. He reportedly went further and said that her complexion clashed with the costumes.
'We felt it was systematic, that it was absolutely harassment'
Sturdivant's parents were livid.
"Our daughter came home and was a mess," Melodie Sturdivant said in the deposition filed in federal court. "She didn't even know how horribly wrong that was because she's never been told anything like that. We were stunned."
https://www.diversityinc.com/Organizational-Misbehavior/black-student-subjected-to-coachs-racial-abuse-sues-for-discrimination-in-kansas
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