Racial bias lawsuit against schools after teen’s suicide moves ahead, but changes made

A civil rights lawsuit involving Modesto schools will go forward, a federal judge ruled in a case brought by the mother of a black teen who committed suicide after receiving school discipline in 2015.

However, pretrial judgments have significantly pared the case from its original scope.

Latisha Cyprian no longer can claim that school administrators picked on her daughter, Doneisha Neal, because of perceived sexual orientation, U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill said in a Jan. 25 ruling. Whether she was treated differently because of her race may be subject to trial, O’Neill decided.

Neal was a 15-year-old honor student and the only girl on Beyer High’s freshman football and boys wrestling teams when an altercation with white students ended in her transfer to Downey High. A fight there led to another expulsion, although her involvement is disputed, and she swallowed a lethal amount of allergy medication the next day.

Her mother contends that the girl was not given a chance to tell her side of the story before she and at least one other black student initially were suspended from Beyer, while white students, including a girl who used a gay slur against Neal, were not disciplined. And administrators should have done more to help Neal upon learning that she was suicidal, the lawsuit claimed.

The Modesto City Schools district and board members previously were dropped from the lawsuit, and last week’s ruling also dismisses Beyer Principal Dan Park, former Downey Principal Richard Baum and a Downey assistant principal. Two other Beyer administrators remain as defendants.

“There is no factual content alleged that supports the theory that there was intentional discrimination on the basis of Neal’s sexual orientation,” the judge said in the ruling. And documents show no “personal involvement” on Park’s part, the ruling says.

But “failure to provide (Neal) with notice and a hearing prior to her expulsion may amount to a violation of her procedural due process rights,” O’Neill said.

Also, Cyprian’s attorney failed to show that a Beyer administrator “acted with deliberate indifference” on learning that Neal was suicidal, or that her “suicide was a foreseeable consequence of harsh school discipline,” the ruling says. In fact, the administrator had alerted Cyprian.

Neal’s first and last names have been spelled various ways by both sides throughout court documents.

In 2012, the district came under state sanctions for disproportionate discipline of black special-education students. The sanctions reportedly were lifted at the beginning of the current school year.

Garth Stapley: 209-578-2390

This story was originally published February 1, 2018 at 2:46 PM with the headline "Racial bias lawsuit against schools after teen’s suicide moves ahead, but changes made."