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A high school southeast of Little Rock would not let a black student be valedictorian though she had the highest grade-point average, and wouldn't let her mom speak to the school board about it until graduation had passed, the graduate claims in Federal Court.


     Kymberly Wimberly, 18, got only a single B in her 4 years at McGehee Secondary School, and loaded up on Honors and Advanced Placement classes. She had the highest G.P.A. and says the school's refusal to let her be sole valedictorian was part of a pattern of discrimination against black students.

 

The next day, high school Principal Darrell Thompson told the mother that he had decided to name a white student as "co-valedictorian," even though Wimberly had a higher GPA and a press release had already been sent out to the local paper naming her in the position.

 


     Wimberly says that despite earning the highest G.P.A. of the Class of 2011, and being informed of it by a school counselor, "school administrators and personnel treated two other white students as heir[s] apparent to the valedictorian and salutatorian spots."

    

Wimberly's case is complicated by the fact that she is also a young mother. The complaint sates she missed three weeks her junior year, due to maternity leave. Title IX protects young mothers from discrimination in educational settings but can't, on its own, eradicate ingrained racial and cultural prejudices.

 

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/07/25/38410.htm

 

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