duly elected school board members. 3) The Emergency Manager only involves the School Board in some
contracts. 4) The Emergency Loan Board does not deal with educational issues. 5) The Emergency
Managers can act for the Board, but have made parents and teachers feel afraid.
The teachers request that their complaints be considered both Title VI complaints about issues concerning
the students and the community, but also Title VII complaints as regards their employment. That said,
complainants who do know not know one another, and do not even have children, as well as those who do
have children, have stated regarding Snyder’s management of the schools and the widespread retaliation in
the community, that they felt “like slaves”. They have repeatedly used phrases like “Jim Crow schools”.
They contrasted slavery times when books were taken from slaves and slaves were beaten for having their
own thoughts and desire to learn, to today, when African Americans in Michigan are deprived of
educational resources and retaliated against for advocating for the rights to free speech others enjoy.
Creating a hostile living environment, where parents, teachers and elected officials are yelled at and
humiliated, where elected officials and staff receive letters about punishment if they even speak about topics
the Emergency Manager doesn’t approve, goes too far and results in widespread feelings that the Governor
is discriminating against protected classes. Things described here are not felt, perceived or heard of in the
white majority school districts in Michigan.
RETALIATION
There is a pattern of ongoing retaliation which we have described. There has been little organic input from