Black student, 11, ‘told to kneel while apologising by white headteacher’

The headmaster reportedly told the boy’s mother that this was ‘African way’ to apologise

Representative image: A principal helps students settle into a classroom at Sun Yat Sen MS 131 on 25 February 2021 in New York City (Getty Images)

A white headmaster at a Long Island Catholic school in New York, who instructed an 11-year-old Black student to kneel on the ground and apologise, has been placed on leave and is under investigation.

The child’s mother, Trisha Paul, told the New York Daily News that the incident occurred last month. John Patrick Holian, the headmaster of St Martin de Porres Marianist School, told Ms Paul, who is Haitian-American, that he’d learned the approach from a Nigerian priest who said it was an “African way” of apologising.

“Once he started mentioning this African family, that’s when it just clicked,” Ms Paul was quoted as saying. “Like, this is not normal procedure. I felt there was no relevance at all. Is he generalising that everyone who is Black is African? That’s when I realised something is not right with this situation.”

She further told the publication that her son is reeling from the incident and that the family is grappling with the suspicion of whether her son was subjected to racial discrimination.

Meanwhile, the acting headmaster of the school has released a statement saying that they neither condone nor accept such action.

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“St. Martin’s neither condones nor accepts the actions of our headmaster. The incident does not reflect our long, established values or the established protocols regarding student related issues. We have launched an internal review of the incident and restated in the clearest terms what is the established and approved practice for student-faculty interaction,” acting headmaster James Conway said in a statement on Monday.

The incident was first reported by the New York Daily News, according to which on 25 February, the student had finished working on a reading assignment ahead of time and started working on a separate assignment because he wanted to get a head start.

The teacher overseeing the work allegedly ripped his worksheet and scolded him for not following instructions before taking him to the headmaster’s office. It was there that he was told to kneel down and apologise, Ms Paul said.

“My son was humiliated, hurt, embarrassed, sad and confused,” she told the paper. “He reads about things happening because of your skin colour. To experience it… he’s just trying to process it in his 11-year-old brain.”

On 1 March when Ms Paul asked the headmaster about the incident on phone, that’s when he mentioned that a Nigerian father at the school told him it was the “African way” of apologising.

“He admitted that he asked him to kneel down,” Ms Paul was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. “He didn’t acknowledge what happened was wrong or how I felt. … He wasn’t remorseful or apologetic at all.”

“When he finished telling this story, I was just on the phone baffled,” said Ms Paul. “My child is not Nigerian. We don’t share the same cultures or beliefs. You’re assuming that because my child is Black that he must kneel down as well.”

“This was a racist act,” Ms Paul told the Washington Post. “In other schools when they are disciplined, it’s detention, it’s extra homework, there are other ways to discipline a child. But degrading a child, humiliating them off the basis of generalising him because he’s just a Black boy, makes no sense.”

Ms Paul further called for the resignation of the headmaster and demanded that the school implement racial sensitivity training. “As much as an apology would be great, I don’t think it would erase anything of the impact it’s had on my child,” she said.