A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against Metro Nashville Public Schools last fall regarding an assignment that required them to imitate formerly enslaved people.

According to the Nashville Tennessean, the family of a boy referred to as “John Doe” in court documents, filed a lawsuit after discovering a lesson called “Let’s Make A Slave,” taught at Waverly Belmont Elementary School in Feb. 2020. The assignment was presented to fourth graders and concentrated on a 1712 speech given by Willie Lynch, a former plantation owner in the West Indies, to white Virginia colonists about how to control their slaves.

The family says the assignment’s content was wildly “graphic and inappropriate” and their son, who is Black and has autism, has suffered physical and emotional trauma as a result.

“While the lesson in question may well have been especially inappropriate for John Doe as a student with a known disability, and even developmentally inappropriate for all fourth graders, that does not mean that its educational content constituted actionable harassment on the basis of race,” U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger, who dismissed the case last week wrote, NBC News reported.

According to the lawsuit, students were required to read the speech and abide by its instructions. The fourth graders were then asked to imitate actual formerly enslaved people by “folding themselves under their desks and pretending to seek freedom from slavery.”

Doe’s family also argued that their son was repeatedly taunted by the teachers and peers and believed that he would be sold into slavery. He also was afraid that his family would be separated from him or set on fire.

“The complaint alleges that the lesson predictably ‘spilled onto the playground’…and that the other students ‘joked’ about the Black History lesson, telling Doe, ‘You are my slave,'" Trauger wrote in her ruling.

The lawsuit did not list how frequently or for what length or time the teasing occurred but the family asserted that the teacher, Andrew Herman, and the school district were aware of the “racially hostile educational environment” but failed to address the situation.

"Metro Schools regrets if any students or parents were caused pain as a result of this incident," a district spokesperson said in a Feb. 2020 statement. "District leaders have been working with school administrators and parents to address concerns for the students involved."

Both the occurrence and the apology from the district, which serves approximately 70-80% of Black and brown children, sparked outrage as the community called for more educational oversight to prevent situations like this from taking place. Community members also demanded better protocols to address similar incidents.

"Once the racist material was presented to and re-enacted by fourth graders, the administration must be aggressive in offering help to those kids,” Justin Gilbert, a Chattanooga-based attorney who specializes in education-related cases and representative for the student's family, said in an email to The Tennessean. “According to the parents, Metro gave a 'sorry if you were offended' type of apology, but nothing of the scale to undo the harm its teachers caused.”

Herman, a student-teacher from Vanderbilt University was dismissed from Metro Nashville Public Schools following the incident. He was also placed on administrative leave at the time it occurred but has since returned to employment by the district.

“As a district, we will continue to work with teachers to provide approved lessons and professional development necessary to educate students on difficult and complex historical and current events in the appropriate way,” Sean Braisted, spokesperson for Metro Nashville Public Schools, said in a statement.

School member Freda Player-Peters said that the school should learn from their experience and take the incident into account as a reference for the future.

"Hopefully we can learn from this experience and learn how to deal with race relations, race issues and race history … with delicacy," she said.

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