‘UNACCEPTABLE’

Teacher Who Held Mock Slave Auction and Used N-Word Placed on Leave, District Says

The teacher allegedly singled out two students of color to stand in as enslaved people during a fifth-grade history lesson.

A Boston-area fifth grade teacher has been placed on administrated leave after allegedly holding a mock slave auction and using the N-word in class, school officials said. Gregory Martineau, the superintendent, apologized for the unnamed teacher’s behavior and informed school families of the teacher’s punishment in a letter this week. “Holding a mock slave auction is unacceptable and violates the District’s core values. Simulations or role plays when teaching about historical atrocities or trauma are not appropriate,” Martineau wrote, because they “trivialize the experience of victims” and disproportionately traumatize students of color. Martineau said the teacher in question held a mock slave auction during a history lesson and asked two children of color to stand in front of the room, role-playing as enslaved people. In a separate incident months later, the same teacher said the N-word while reading aloud from a book—although that slur did not appear in the text of the book. When a student reported the racist incident, the educator then “inappropriately called out” that student, retaliation Martineau slammed as “unacceptable.”