Federal judge sides with Wisconsin middle school where teachers asked students how they would 'punish' a slave

• A judge dismissed a suit over a Wisconsin middle school's assignment about how to "punish" a slave.
• Two parents sued the district last year, saying the assignment violated their kids' civil rights.

A federal judge this month dismissed a lawsuit brought by two Black parents over a Wisconsin middle school assignment that asked students how they would "punish" a slave in ancient Mesopotamia.

The sixth-grade homework question at Patrick Marsh Middle School prompted outrage last year when it was administered to students on the first day of Black History Month.

"A slave stands before you. This slave has disrespected his master by telling him, 'You are not my master!' How will you punish this slave?'" the assignment read.

The assignment said the answer was "According to Hammurabi's Code: put to death."

The question was not part of the school district's approved curriculum on ancient Mesopotamia and the three teachers who created the assignment were put on administrative leave amid an internal investigation. All three educators later resigned, according to The Wisconsin State Journal.

Two parents subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Sun Prairie School District in June 2021. Dazrrea Ervins and Priscilla Jones alleged the assignment violated their civil rights, as well as those of their children — one of whom was in the class where the question was administered.

The lawsuit also accused the district of discriminating against one of the children over his learning disability and said the school had failed to protect the boy from racism.

But US District Judge James Peterson this month sided with the school district, saying Ervins and Jones failed to provide evidence that the assignment had violated their civil rights or their children's, according to court documents obtained by Insider.

"A reasonable jury certainly could find that its content and timing were offensive, insensitive and justifiably upset students and their families," Peterson wrote of the incident. "But a hostile environment claim requires much more than a single upsetting episode."

The suit had also alleged that the district kept the child with a learning disability away from his classmates in a separate room on three different occasions, and said other children regularly called the child racial slurs. Peterson wrote in his final decision that the student's accounts of racism and bullying were "disturbing," and acknowledged that the district did not "effectively protect" the boy.

But Peterson still ruled in favor of the district, saying the district had not treated the children differently because of their race. The plaintiffs, he wrote, did not prove that the allegations of racism or the district's response had impacted the children's education.

"The assignment might have had a different effect on [the plaintiffs] than it did on White students, but [they] were not treated differently from their classmates," the judge wrote.

A spokesperson for the school district did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, now did an attorney for Ervins and Jones.