EBD Blog

Here’s a story about a troubling combination of race, disability, adolescence, sports mentality, and probably other factors that apparently combined to result in—you guessed it—violence. Under the headline “Martin schools sued over beating,” Daphne Duret of the Palm Beach (FL, US) Post reported about a suit being brought by Michele Potts because of a beating she says her son, Henry Daniel Banks, received after a football practice, ostensibly for using a racial slur during the practice.

A Hobe Sound mother sued the Martin County School Board Monday claiming school officials failed to protect her emotionally disabled son, who briefly played football at South Fork High School before several teammates accused him of using a racial slur and beat him up in a locker room.

Michele Potts’ son, Henry Daniel Banks, was a week into his freshman year and an offensive lineman on the junior varsity football team in August 2005, when at least two players followed him into the freshman locker room at the end of practice one afternoon, records show. They beat him so badly they caused permanent damage to his teeth and jaw, knocking two of his teeth into the roof of his mouth, his mother said.

Link to Ms. Duret’s story.