DIETRICH, Idaho (AP) – Teaching her children how to peacefully respond to racist comments in a tiny Idaho town was not new for the mother of 20 adopted children, many of whom are black. She often found herself echoing the virtues taught in Dietrich’s only church.
Kindness and patience can overcome ignorance in the mostly white, rural community, she told her kids. Forgive. Turn the other cheek.
Then her black teenage son joined the football team. Within months, three of his teammates used a coat hanger to sexually assault him in a school locker room, prosecutors say. The attack came after the woman said she spent months trying to convince school officials that her and her husband’s concerns about the repeated racist harassment directed at their children needed to be treated seriously.
The allegations of prolonged racist taunts and physical abuse were revealed this month when the family filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Dietrich School District. It claims the school failed to prevent the abuse even though much of it happened in front of football coaches and school officials.
Three teens have been charged in the Oct. 23 assault: two with felonies in adult court and one in juvenile court. In the lawsuit, the victim contends one of his teammates pretended to want to hug him but instead held him down so 17-year-old Tanner Ward and 18-year-old John Howard could assault him.