New Report Found SF Teacher Was Suspended For Discriminating Against White Students

Reports of a major discrimination case at Lowell High School in the San Francisco school district last year surfaced on Thursday when a Fox News Digital request for documents via the California Public Records Act was granted. Allegations said a Latina teacher discriminated against white students in the class, but was given a long suspension.

Since the beginning of the decade, the San Francisco Unified School District has been involved in a clash between residents, parents of students, and school district officials. While many liberal changes were made in the decades prior, these reached a breaking point in the early 2020s. A controversial plan to rename 44 schools in the district due to the namesakes being slave owners, having a part in slavery and genocide, being a part of human rights violations, or were known racists or white supremacists was halted after a major public backlash and many pointing out that the names they wanted replaced were actually celebrated Americans who fought against racist systems such as Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere. The lottery system of admittance to Lowell High School was reverted back to being merit-based after similar public backlash. Murals in schools that were covered up due to ‘racist’ events were uncovered due to the events actually being historically accurate.

These incidents, plus many more, fueled a public campaign against the school board, especially after one member was found to have made anti-Asian tweets. In February of last year, San Francisco voters chose to recall SF School Board Members Gabriela Lopez, Faauuga Moliga, and Alison Collins by a 70% average mark. New members were quickly brought in, and since then, the board has undone many of the controversial policies that the District has enacted over the past several decades.

However, individual teachers have remained a big exception. Many teachers in the district hired before the changes brought in the ideologies that prior boards tried to instill on a larger scale in the district. As the result, many teachers have clashed with students and parents. On Thursday, new information released via the California Public Records Act found that San Francisco teachers are now beginning suspensions for racially discriminating against white students.

According to the report, a Latina teacher named Nicole Noel Henares of Lowell High School, who has been a teacher in the District since 2020, made white students stand up during a class in the fall of 2022 and ask if “they felt like a minority.” Both the students picked on and others watching felt confused and could give no answer one way or another. The District soon received several complaints from parents and was put on paid administrative leave starting on September 15th for an investigation. She was ultimately given an unpaid suspension between December 13th and January 12th for her discriminatory remark.

Suspension

Investigations into Henares’ classes also found that she often used inappropriate materials during class time, such as a sexually explicit Lil Nas X song. Henares said that she singled out the white students in frustration for dominating class discussions and never used the song in class. However, students in the class confirmed that singling out the white students had nothing to do with the class and had indeed used the song in class.

“She made everyone uncomfortable,” said one parent of a student at Lowell High School who asked for anonymity. “A teacher shouldn’t single out a student of any race like that. Even worse is that she wouldn’t own up to her mistakes and the students had to say what she had done. The feeling here is that she got off way too lightly in terms of the suspension, and you can bet that every parent will be watching her like a hawk no matter what she teaches next.”

According to LinkedIn, she is still employed by the School District.

Experts told the Globe Thursday that the incident highlighted how much the San Francisco school district still needs to change.

“San Francisco has really been blasting away a lot of these controversial things at their schools,” San Francisco-based policy advisor Sharon Burke told the Globe. “They have a LOT of other problem areas in the city right now, but parents have been good about reversing all those school changes. They recalled a chunk of the school board after all. But teachers remain a problem because they keep pulling things like this. And, say, five years ago, that complaint would have likely been written off. Now, she got a suspension. A big part of it was paid, but she was also pulled out for about half a semester. There are still people in San Francisco trying to do the right thing. Many feel like the suspension should have been longer or that she should have been fired. But right now they’re still baby-stepping with change.”

“If anything, this suspension is giving teachers a lot more pause from injecting any kind of racial discrimination. Paid suspension isn’t a cake walk, as it is a black mark on any record. It’s not like the New York rubber rooms anymore. It’s a sign that parents are taking back their schools more and more there. For San Francisco, that’s a sign of hope that people are still fighting for the city to go back in the right direction.”

More on the Lowell incident is expected to be made public soon.