A recent high school graduate from Arkansas is suing her school district, claiming it refused to recognize her as the school's sole valedictorian because she is black.
Kymberly Wimberly, 18, earned the highest grade point average in McGehee Secondary School's 2011 graduating class. She did so as a young mother, according to the complaint she submitted to the U.S. District Court for Arkansas' Eastern District. She was named the school's valedictorian and then later given co-valedictorian status with a white student who had lower grades, her complaint says.
Kymberly Wimberly
No legal response has been filed by lawyers for the school district or any other school or district representatives, according to court officials. Superintendent Thomas Gathen said he has yet to be served with any sort of court documents. Because of this, Gathen said he was unable to comment on several individual issues brought up in Wimberly's complaint.
"The issue that someone’s trying to paint is that this was a racially motivated," Gathen told CNN. "That wasn’t an issue with (the co-valedictorians). This is strictly an academic issue and a policy issue, not a racial issue."
Wimberly is seeking punitive damages of $75,000 and recognition as the sole valedictorian of her class. Wimberly's complaint also argues the McGehee school district, in southeastern Arkansas not too far from the Mississippi River, habitually withheld access to challenging classes from black students.
Wimberly said students were told at a schoolwide assembly that advance placement classes were very rigorous and that only those who really thought they would thrive with intense workloads should elect to take them. Then, individual students were taken aside and told that the classes really weren’t all that bad, she told CNN. The overwhelming majority of those students were white, she said, adding that she was the only black student in her AP literature class and one of two in calculus.
“Black students are meant to stay in regular course levels and mostly play sports,” Wimberly said. “That’s what were good at that that’s what we should stick to - that’s the mentality of McGehee.”
Wimberly said she had one teacher, for AP biology, who encouraged all students to take the class. Its racial makeup was half black, half white, and was more reflective of McGehee's student population, which is 46% black.
The case has been gaining increasing attention since Courthouse News Service reported on it Monday.
According to the complaint, Wimberly's mother, Molly Bratton, works as the McGehee district's media specialist. On May 10, Bratton learned from the school's counselor that her daughter had earned the top grade point average in her class. After sharing the exciting news with her daughter, she overheard someone in the school's copy room saying the accolade would cause "a big mess," according to the complaint.
Later that day, the complaint says, Bratton confirmed her daughter's status with Superintendent Gathen.
Then things began to unravel, according to Wimberly.
The next day, the school's principal, Darrell Thompson, told Bratton that he had decided to appoint another student, who was white, as a co-valedictorian. CNN was unable to reach Thompson for comment.
The complaint says Thompson attributed the decision to something in the student handbook, though the complaint says he did not list a specific policy.
In regards to recognition of a valedictorian, the McGehee handbook says that "students must be continuously enrolled at McGehee High School the last two semesters without transferring during this time to be considered in class ranking or eligible for valedictorian or salutatorian status."
The handbook says students will be given the same class rank only if their grades are the same, but in deciding class rank, students with lower GPAs who are taking more or harder classes will not be penalized. Gathen said the Wimberly's co-valedictorian had half a credit more than Wimberly and the difference in the students' GPAs was .03 or .05. Gathen said the outcome would have been the same were the situations reversed.
"I would have made the same decision," he said. "I was the one who made the ultimate decision."
Wimberly said she knew of students sharing the valedictorian position in the past, but only if their GPAs were the same, “down to the very last decimal point.”
When she found out that her daughter would have a co-valedictorian, Bratton called Gathen, who told her he had OK'd Thompson's decision, court documents state. The school's counselor had already sent out a news release to the local community about Wimberly's achievement, but the school then sent out an additional one about the co-valedictorian.
Bratton sought to bring up the issue at a school board meeting but was told by Gathen that it would have to wait for a meeting after the school's graduation ceremony because of an error in the form she filled out, according to the documents.
In addition to these details of the case, the complaint also claims that the district places more emphasis on challenging its white students than its black ones.
"African-American students were not encouraged to take Honors or Advanced Placement classes," the complaint says. "Caucasian students had to almost opt out (of advanced classes)."
Wimberly said she was lucky in that she had parents who would support her academic pursuits, even if many of her teachers would not.
“(Other students’) parents aren’t as active as mine,” Wimberly said. “Think about children who don’t have parents who are active in the school."
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Do you think they would have thought this hard about it had they originally named the white student valedictorian?
I think she is suing for too little. The lawyer gets 1/3 of it, and that barely leaves enough for four years of college at a good school. Hopefully she will get a full scholarship somewhere and she can put this money aside for her next step in life. I wish her the best! The school needs to learn a lesson and this may be the only way they can learn it – via their pocketbook! Without the suit, they would probably just continue on their merry way – and unwilling to have a valedictorian who is an African-American.
I need more information on their GPA's and how many credit hours they took. If the white student took more hours, they would have a lower GPA due to how AP classes work; even if they got an "A" in the class. Having more credit hours actually dilutes your GPA. Many schools will account for that and take the extra credit off one student to make it comparable to the other student. It is very possible and very likely that these two students actually have the same exact GPA when you hold credit hours constant. People should take that into account before they start speculating discrimination. It could be that the counselor wasn't taking this extra credit issue into consideration when she told her she had the highest GPA. I was co-valedictorian with two other students in my class. We made sure we took the same amount of credit hours so we wouldn't have this issue.
Taking more credit hours does not dilute your GPA. The "A" stands for "average." If you take 4 classes and get an A in each (A=4 points) you earn 16 points. 16 dived by 4 = 4; your GPA is 4.0 or A. If you take 5 classes and earn an A in each, your GPA is still 4.0 (4 x 5 = 20 / 5 = 4.0). The inequality comes in when a person who is taking EASIER classes earns an equal or higher grade than one taking harder classes and therefore ends up with a higher GPA.
Many school districts give extra points for advanced placement or honors classes, to reduce any penalty for the harder classes. I don't know about this school district in particular, but my school district assigns 6 points (on a 4-point scale) for an "A" in an advanced placement class, 5 points for an "A" in an honors class, and the usual 4 points for an "A" in a regular class – because of that, someone with mostly A's and a few of these advanced or honors classes can have a GPA greater than 4.0 (My valedictorian had something crazy like a 5.1).
All of the ifs, maybes and "it could have beens" are ridiculously far fetched and stray away from the obvious. I think that it's obvious that something really needs to change within the district and it may not be the best place for normal people to be educated, taking their current decision makers into consideration. Sounds like a bunch of "Self-Defined Christians" to me. What a shame? If that darrell thompson (dt) were at one of my schools...I would carefully remove his existence to the unemployment line...right where it belongs.
To Ms. Kymberly Wimberly...please know that as an older, educated and successful African-American, it is best to observe this behavior and move on but never forget it, there's more to come as your matriculation process becomes more valuable to you. I've learned that it's worth it because you'll see them again as they will you. I was born in that area, just outside of Pine Bluff and trust me...you'll learn that they're not so smart. You'll leave their league quickly and they will be irrelevant to you...trust me. Congrats and I'm waiting on you at the top "Sista"!!! This really brought back some memories for me and I'm smiling in remembrance of how simple-minded people can be...SMH & LOL
How to get punished for taking extra classes (which the plaintiff did not):
Regular class = 4 points
AP class = 5 points
Take 3 classes (1 AP): (5 + 4 + 4) /3 GPA = 4.33
Take 4 classes (1 AP): (5 + 4 + 4 + 4) /4 GPA = 4.25
You're probably correct, that it was about morals and not race, but if they didn't have any policy in place that stated anything other than GPA was considered, she still has a case. I doubt she'll get $750K–she's obviously viewing this as a golden opportunity.
I don't understand how having an unwed mom would make her have the highest GPA in the entire school, which made the white school principal so uncomfortable that he chose a white student with a lower GPA to be a "co-valedictorian". Can you please explain?
DISLIKE!!!
OBVIOUSLY YOUR MOTHER DID NOT DO A GOOD JOB. YOU ARE JUDGING HER AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HER.....
I know you are trolling, maybe, but your comment cracked me up! Thanks for the laugh !
Either way... Morality based or racially based. It's flat out wrong.
So you're assuming she's trying to cash in and not making a very valid point? Really?
You're right, she must be a lazy deadbeat to be at the top of her class as a mother. Think about that just for a minute. Lawsuits SHOULD be about social justice, and this one is, IMHO.
That's right, a golden opportunity- for WHAT? An attempt to make a lot of money without having to work for it? I'm sure that's how she got to be valedictorian, by being a lazy opportunist and whining.
AP classes are weighted into the GPA so I think this whole argument is nonsense. Either her GPA was tied for first or it wasn't. She deserves every single thing she has worked her butt off for.
If she said she should get special treatment because she's black or because she's a single mother then she'd be way off base. She earned her status as the number one student in her class. Why is it OK to dilute that?
Obviously you're not too smart. It's 75k, not 750k. Maybe you should take an AP class in math.
Well, it says she sued in federal court. Her lawyer may have been desperate for a jurisdictional basis that would stick, so s/he threw in the kitchen sink of "qualifiers." You need $75k + parties from different states to bring a diversity suit in federal court; and although there may not be diversity of citizenship, the case promotes educational diversity (see the second allegation, regarding the racial composition of AP classes), which is close enough, right?
But seriously, it's probably a good idea to shoot for a federal forum rather than let the Arkansas state court system decide what to do with a black plaintiff' novel race-based claim.
Read the story. She's asking for $75,000...not $750,000. Probably just enough to pay for her college degree now that a scholarship is out of the question because she went from Valedictorian to Co-Valedictorian.
note that she is asking only $75,000, not $750,000. Does anyone realize how important valedictorian status is to a college bound person? I'm thrilled she's taking them on. Arkansas has always been a racially stunted state, and this proves to me that things haven't changed much since Brown vs the Board of Education. This white grandma says "You go, Girl'!