Hanging of Second Grader Highlights School Safety as a Civil Rights Issue

The rise in school-injury incidents has further amplified the potential risks for Black students and families.

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Last Saturday, a Maryland mother shared on Instagram that her second-grade son was hung in a bathroom at C. Paul Barnhart Elementary School by a fourth grader. According to her caption, she received a call informing her that her son was found unresponsive by the school principal, foaming at the mouth, and was subsequently rushed to the hospital. 

School district officials later released a statement citing the incident as “horseplaying” between the two students. According to their account, the second grader’s jacket was caught on a bathroom stall hook, leading the fourth grader to seek help immediately. 

However, despite efforts reported by the school, the mother’s social media post painted a harrowing picture: her child surrounded by doctors in a hospital trauma room, all due to a lack of school safety — a systemic crisis that many Black students fall victim to quite too often. 

A Local Crisis with a National Pattern of Neglect

The tragic event is, unfortunately, no isolated incident. Across the nation, Black students face disproportionate risks in schools due to systemic inequities in supervision, safety protocols, and school responses. A 2022 study by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that schools serving predominantly Black students, like C. Paul Barnhart Elementary, are more likely to have inadequate safety measures.

A study by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights also revealed that schools with higher populations of Black students were less likely to report safety incidents accurately, leading to a lack of appropriate interventions and the perpetuation of unsafe learning environments.

Additionally, research continues to show that Black students are more likely to be perceived as the offender rather than the victim — more prone to being disciplined or funneled through the school-to-prison pipeline than to receive the proper response and care needed when they experience harm or injury at school. 

A Race-Related Issue or Merely a Student Safety One?

After the Maryland mother’s Instagram post went viral, many commenters questioned the race of the fourth grader who was reportedly responsible for hanging the second grader. “What is the race of the child who did this?” one person wrote. “The fact that the kid was hung and that they are trying to cover for the child responsible tells me everything I need to know,” another wrote. 

The mother would later take to Instagram to thank everyone for sharing her post and bringing more awareness to the incident. In her post, she confirmed that the fourth grader was also a Black student. 

“I do have updated information from my son, and the child is not Caucasian he is African American. This isn’t a race issue, this is a school/parent issue.” One commenter responded: “Finding out this isn’t a race issue makes it even more heartbreaking.” Another wrote: “Just because another Black student committed the incident doesn’t mean it’s not racist.”

The responses speak to the reality that while the incident may not have been with racist intentions, it is one that still raises even more questions about the lack of student safety and the intentions of the fourth grader, who keep in mind, — is a child, too. 

School Safety Is A Fundamental Civil Right

The reported hanging of the student is more than a tragic incident but should serve as a wake-up call. Black youth deserve learning environments free from harm, injury, and neglect. 

If we continue failing to hold responsible parties accountable or report such incidents inaccurately, we risk perpetuating the cycle of trauma and inequity that not only harm individual Black students, but also their families and communities.

Reforms in school safety, especially for Black students, have been long advocated for. However, incidents like the one at Barnhart Elementary highlight the demand to accelerate these efforts. Ensuring the overall well-being of our students is not just a priority — but a fundamental civil right — in desperate need of urgent attention. 

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Quintessa is an Education Reporter for Word In Black and a contributing writer, whose writing interests are “ingrained in the varied Black womanist, culture, educational and social justice experience.” | #WEOC leader & moderator | Editing words for Cultured, WEOC, and AfroSapiophile Publications | With bylines in MadameNoire, The Root, ZORA, Momentum, and midnight & indigo.