Advocates are calling for justice after the incident they consider to be rooted in prejudice.
HOUSTON — Due to an incident inside a school named after American folk hero Paul Revere, one family’s American dream is being tested.
“I heard about the U.S.,” said an Afghan father we agreed not to identify. “That there is freedom, there’s education, there’s law.”
His 13-year-old daughter still wears a neck brace weeks after an alleged attack that was caught on camera inside the cafeteria at her school on March 3.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR Houston, recently shared the violent video with a plea for justice.
“As soon as we, like, went to sit down, they just started to attack us,” the seventh grader said.
We’re told the seventh grader was knocked unconscious after she said a group of girls attacked her and two friends who had on traditional head scarves, or hijabs.
“And then they started to pull our hijabs off at first,” the student said. “And then they started to pull our hair and then started to, like, jump on us.”
“Their head scarves, their hijabs, were ripped off their heads during this fight,” CAIR Houston Director William White said. “That, to me, is striking Islamophobia.”
CAIR even claimed one of the girls may have been stabbed with a pencil.
However, Houston ISD made no mention of that or a potential motive. The district also said there was only one victim, while seven students were disciplined.
An attorney is helping the family navigate the situation, including trying to get a transfer to another campus, which he said HISD hasn’t made easy.
“But we’re not going to send the girls back until we’re 100% assured that they’re safe and they’re OK,” attorney Ahsan Patoli said.
Houston ISD’s full statement
“HISD takes the safety of all students very seriously, and the images of this incident do not meet the standards we expect of our students. While some of the details shared in CAIR’s press release do not match the facts of the investigation, the district shares CAIR’s belief that the incident warranted both consequences for the aggressors and care for the victim. The seven aggressors in the incident received disciplinary consequences aligned with the district’s code of conduct. The victim in the incident has been offered a school transfer, which is currently in process. The school staff met with the family on March 6th to discuss their concerns. School staff explained that consequences were issued immediately based on the HISD Code of Conduct, and advised the parents of their right to press criminal/assault charges against the students who assaulted their daughter.”
CAIR’s post
“The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Houston) today called on the Houston Independent School District (HISD) to take urgent and transparent action following the alleged violent targeting of three Afghan girls at Paul Revere Middle School on March 3.
“According to the families involved, the girls were sitting at their lunch table when they were surrounded and physically assaulted by at least 20 students. The attackers reportedly used pencils to stab the girls. One student was reportedly beaten so severely that she became unresponsive to teachers and was taken to Texas Children’s Hospital in the Medical Center, where she remained for four days. She is now required to wear a neck brace and continues to suffer both physical and emotional trauma from the assault.
“The girls were allegedly attacked based on their ethnicity and discriminated against because they wore the Islamic headscarf (hijab) when the group wrongfully targeted them for what was believed by the families to be a case of mistaken identity over middle school drama in the school.
“One Assistant Principal broke up the fight in the lunchroom at the time.
“To date, Paul Revere Middle School has failed to respond to multiple requests from the victims’ families and their representatives to meet regarding the incident or to accommodate their request to transfer the girls to a safer environment. HISD initially approved the transfer of one student but later rescinded the approval. The girls remain in a state of fear and anxiety, forced to return to the same school environment where they were brutally attacked.”
The post continued with a quote from White.