Student Videotapes Alleged Racial Harassment School Calls 'Egregious'

Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent Robert J. Glass says appropriate disciplinary action has been taken in “egregious” with harassment of 13-year-old student. (Screenshot: WDIV-TV video)

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A 13-year-old Bloomfield Hills Middle School student recently turned the tables on students accused of repeatedly taunting him with racial slurs when he recorded them in a video that has been turned over to a Detroit television station.

Two students have reportedly been suspended – one for two weeks and another for two days – after school district officials viewed the video.

Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent Robert J. Glass said the situation was “egregious.”

“We take these things very seriously ...” he told WDIV-TV. “I think we took the appropriate action in this case.”

Glass didn’t specifically say the students were suspended, but the mother of Phoenix Williams, who agreed to share his story publicly with the TV station, said that was her understanding of the disciplinary action taken by the school district.

Shanari Williams said she think the students should be been expelled in accordance with the school’s zero-tolerance policy.

She said her family has felt welcome in Bloomfield Hills until the recent incident involving her son, an athlete and honor student.

Now, Phoenix is completing his assignments at home because the family fears reprisal from the two students who allegedly taunted him, Shanari Williams said.

The racial slurs allegedly began last spring just days after a videotape of a University of Oklahoma fraternity chanting racist slogans went viral. In his interview with WDIV, Phoenix said students began looking up racist jokes online during a computer lab class, then turned them on him.

“How was this even allowed to happen?” he said, questioning why teachers didn’t intervene.

Phoenix said he didn’t think anyone would believe him, so he kept the story to himself.

After he was taunted on the way to a March 13 field trip to a concert, Phoenix used his cell phone on the return trip to record the alleged harassment so he would have evidence of the harassment. Among the events leading up to 13-year-old’s decision to videotape the confrontation was a barrage of racist jokes, and an encounter in which one student allegedly promised candy to another student if he would refer to Phoenix by a racist slur.

WDIV has an edited version of the video.

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The families of the students who were involved in the taunting have issued statements.

“As parents we are both embarrassed and disappointed by this inexcusable behavior by our son,” the family of one of the students said in a statement. “Under no circumstances do we condone such behavior.”

An attorney representing the other family said in a statement:

“My client is deeply remorseful for his ugly action. He has learned at a very young age a valuable lesson in tolerance (and) not treating people differently on the basis of race.”

Phoenix said he decided to come forward to spark a conversation about race so other students won’t go through what he has.

“I want a peaceful life,” he told the TV station. “When I come to school, I don’t really want to be confronted like this.”