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A former employee at a Wisconsin high school is arguing that context in every situation is important after he was fired for using the N-word while telling a combative student not to call him the slur.
According to Newsweek, Marlon Anderson, who is African American, had worked for three years as a security guard at West High School in Madison, and in the school district for 11 years. But, tempers flared during a confrontation with a student whom he was trying to calm down and get to leave the school premises.
Anderson claims that the student started to curse at him and screamed the N-word at him repeatedly. To emphasize how unacceptable this was, Anderson used the word in response.
He said, “Don’t call me that, don’t call me the n-word and don’t call me n*****,” using the word.
The Madison Metropolitan School District fired Anderson, citing a zero-tolerance policy of staff using the word, following a number of recent incidents in which racial slurs had been used.
The Principal of West High, Karen Boran, informed parents by email that “regardless of context or circumstance, racial slurs are not acceptable in our schools.”
“I shouldn’t be punished because I have the right to tell somebody not to call me this word”– an emotional plea from a security guard fired from West High for repeating the n-word when asking a student to stop calling him that. MMSD’s education board will be reexamining policies pic.twitter.com/zlhSOShKW5
— Madalyn O’Neill (@news3madalyn) October 17, 2019
Anderson challenged the district’s decision in an interview with TV station Channel 3000, saying he was unfairly targeted as he was just trying to make a point.
“I want the zero-tolerance policy to be looked at. It’s lazy,” Anderson said. “My mother was called this word. My father was called this word, my grandmother, my grandfather, and keep going down the family line.
“We were all called this word, and not one of them could say, ‘Don’t call me that.’ I can. And I shouldn’t be punished, because I have the right to tell somebody not to call me this word,” he said.
The union Madison Teachers Inc. is fighting the dismissal. In a statement, the union said: “We hope the school board will modify their action earlier and get him back to work,” according to WKOW.
“You have no tolerance for a word, but yet you let students call me that word 15 times without correcting that behavior,” Anderson added.
