An Arizona teacher was fired after defending a Black student against a group of boys who were taunting him with racial slurs, reports CBS 5 News.
Pam Aister, a 25-year veteran in the Fountain Hills Unified School District, said the incident happened back in May when five boys bullied 9-year-old Malachi Gillis inside her classroom. The young boy alleges the group said comments such as “You belong to a zoo,” “stupid head,” “monkey,” “crackhead” and even the N-word.
A mother of one of the students said the teacher’s behavior while defending Gillis was “threatening.”
Aister was initially suspended in May and the district moved to fire her over the summer. She eventually appealed the decision and spoke with a governing board on Monday night.
“Student 11 (bullied student) is in my room now. He is not alone,” Aister told the board. “When you pick on him – you pick on me. It is not five to one anymore. It is five to two. There will be no more taunting, teasing and racial names called. That is not acceptable here; do you understand?”
By a vote of 4-1, Aister was terminated for “not [taking] responsibility for her misconduct.”
“That makes me beyond mad because why is she being fired for something she is supposed to do?” asked Malachi’s mother, Jennifer Gillis. “She’s supposed to be standing up for the students. They didn’t like it, so it turned into her threatening the kids because she stood up for this one black child in her class.”
A petition has since been launched to reinstate Aister. Supporters are calling the board’s decision “ridiculous, over the top, and logically offensive”
Photo courtesy of CBS 5 News
To date, the petition has collected more than 13,000 signatures.