DETROIT – The family of a Croswell-Lexington High School student is suing the Croswell-Lexington School District for the racial harassment that their daughter has experienced.
They’re claiming their Black daughter was repeatedly harassed and threatened because of her skin color.
“She begged me, begged me to turn white,” said her mother, April Malik. “It was heartbreaking.”
That was the breaking point for April and Rob Malick. Their 14-year-old adopted daughter, who is Black, had been subjected to months of harassment and threats of violence at Croswell-Lexington High School, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the district.
Their daughter begged her mother to make her white so it would end. The Malick’s have since removed their daughter from the school.
The family says it wasn’t all the students at Croswell-Lexington who were hostile but enough that the harassment was pervasive and persistent.
“In the beginning, they were like, ‘yeah, let’s get this done; we’re gonna investigate,” said Rob Malick.
Yet as each progressive issue popped up, Malick says the responses became terse.
“You have adults standing by and not taking action,” said Attorney Deborah Gordon.
That is the crux of a federal lawsuit filed by Gordon on behalf of the Malick family. The school district, for its part, says it does not tolerate racial harassment and sent us this statement.