(AMERICAN MIRROR) – Aaron Benner, a black teacher from St. Paul, Minnesota, won a large settlement with the St. Paul School District last week over retaliation he faced for speaking out against the district's race-based student discipline policies.
The St. Paul School Board approved a $525,000 payout last Tuesday to settle a federal lawsuit Brenner filed in 2017 alleging the district forced him out of his teaching position with numerous bogus personnel investigations in the 2014-15 school year, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Benner argued the investigations came in retaliation for complaints to the school board about race-based student discipline policies implemented by then Superintendent Valeria Silva and promoted by President Obama. The discipline policies aimed to reduce suspensions of black students by lowering the expectations for behavior and increasing the threshold for suspensions, something Benner repeatedly, publicly argued was against the best interests of black students.
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