Michelle Obama’s brother and his wife, Craig and Kelly Robinson, have filed a lawsuit alleging racial bias at Milwaukee Community College, the private school their children attended.
Breaking the news on Good Morning America on Tuesday, the Robinsons said their two children were expelled from school last year after parents raised concerns about bias in the curriculum and mistreatment of students of color.
“It’s been heartbreaking to watch them handle this,” Kelly Robinson said of her children in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network.
USM School Principal Steve Hancock defended the school in a letter to families Tuesday, though a spokesman for the school did not respond to questions from the Journal Sentinel. In the letter, Hancock said the students’ rejection was not because parents raised concerns, but because the parents violated school policies in the way they communicated.
The Robinsons said they are seeking financial compensation from the school, which charges about $30,000 a year for tuition. The Robinsons have pledged to award any monetary award to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools.
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The family moved to the Milwaukee area in 2016 when Craig was hired to work with the Milwaukee Bucks. They said they chose to enroll their children in kindergarten and first grade at USM because it was ranked as the best school in the region and promoted as valuing diversity.
The Robinsons said they started noticing problems with the curriculum during the pandemic, when they were helping their children with virtual education.
“That allowed us to look around the classroom and what we saw was a repeated use of racial and ethnic stereotypes in actual school assignments,” Craig Robinson said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.
In November 2020, they said, they brought their concerns to USM staff and pointed out worksheets and projects that were offensive to people of color, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and other underrepresented students.
At first, the Robinsons said school administrators were interested in working with them to improve the curriculum. They had a series of calls to discuss ideas, and Kelly said that at one point, Hancock told her that she should be on the payroll for all the work she put in.
In January and March 2021, Kelly said, she submitted two bias reports through the school’s reporting system regarding classwork that had “socioeconomic insensitivities.” At that point, Kelly said that Hancock disagreed, and the dynamic changed.
The Robinsons declined to share any specific problems with the materials, saying the main problem was how the school responded to their concerns and excluded their children.
In an April email to Kelly, included in the lawsuit, Hancock told her that she had failed to meet the school’s expectations for parents, engaging in “disrespectful and discouraging” communications. In the same email, Hancock asked her to find another school for one of her children.
In June, Hancock said the school would not allow any of the Robinson children to return for the 2021-22 school year, according to another email included with the lawsuit. He again blamed Kelly Communications for the school’s decision, calling the children “students who embody USM’s portrait of a graduate.”
As other families learned of what happened, the Robinsons said they heard a flood of stories of other troubling experiences, including lack of repercussions for racial epithets and other discrimination against students of color. Some of those stories have been shared on the Instagram account, “Black at USM.”
Another parent, Cynthia McPhedran, said she had been as persistent as the Robinsons on issues her family had with bias in classrooms, as well as issues with students learning virtually while others were learning in person.
When McPhedran learned that the Robinsons had been expelled, she decided to get her children out as well.
Among the problems McPhedran noticed at the school: a teacher dressed as a sumo wrestler; a teacher asking students to debate whether they prefer to be Pilgrims or Native Americans; and the lack of accommodations for virtual students.
McPhedran said she, along with the Robinsons and other families, raised concerns with the intention of helping and improving the school. After her actions against the Robinsons, she said the families are afraid to raise issues.
The Robinsons ask USM to take several steps: diversify the school board’s administration and faculty; conduct racial sensitivity training for staff and students; and expand efforts dedicated to supporting students from underrepresented groups. His call to action has been signed by dozens of former and current students and parents.
Follow Rory Linnane on Twitter: @rorylinnane.