A Black mother filed a civil rights lawsuit last week against the Los Angeles Unified School District and its Board of Education, alleging that in 2017, a cotton field was set up at an elementary school to teach students about experiences enslaved people endured, but only left her child traumatized.
The Los Angeles Times reports Rashunda Pitts claims in her suit that her 14-year-old daughter suffered emotional distress as a result of the project at Laurel Span School.
The child’s social justice teacher claimed the exercise was designed to give students "gain a real-life experience as to what the African American slaves had endured."
According to the lawsuit, Pitts was dropping off her daughter on campus one day when she noticed a cotton field in front of the school.
When she called the office, she was able to speak with Assistant Principal Brian Wisniewski, who explained that her child’s class was reading Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and that the cotton field was set up so students could have a "real life experience" with slavery.