A Michigan father has filed a $1 million lawsuit again his daughter's school district, a librarian, and a teaching assistant, after they allegedly cut his child's hair without permission.
As reported by CBS News, dad Jimmy Hoffmeyer claims in his lawsuit - which was filed on Tuesday in Grand Rapids - that his seven-year-old daughter had her constitutional rights violated by employees of Mount Pleasant Public Schools.
He is also suing for racial discrimination, ethnic intimidation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and assault and battery on behalf of his mixed-race daughter.
More on this lawsuit in the report below:Speaking to the Associated Press earlier this year, Hoffmeyer claims that after his daughter arrived home from Ganiard Elementary, a significant amount of hair on the side of her head had been cut without permission.
His daughter, named Jurnee, said that a fellow classmate used a pair of scissors to cut her hair while on the school bus.
Per Hoffmeyer's lawsuit, his daughter had "long, curly hair" prior to the incident.
After complaining to the school's principal, he took Jurnee to have her hair styled at a salon in order to make her hair asymmetrical. However, two days later, his daughter arrived home with her hair cut on the other side.
The father said to his daughter: "I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair."
To which Jurnee replied: "But Dad, it was the teacher," with Hoffmeyer claiming that the teacher had cut his daughter's hair in order to "even it out".
The lawsuit states that the school district "failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline and supervise their employees, and knew or should have known that the employees would engage in the complained of behavior given the improper training, customs, procedures and policies, and the lack of discipline that existed for employees."
The Mount Pleasant school board stated back in June that the member of staff who had cut the child's hair had been reprimanded following an independent investigation - which included a review of videos and photos on social media, along with interviews with district personnel, families, and students.
Despite the employee's "good intentions", the investigation found that they had violated the school's policy.
The AP reports that the faculty member was placed on a "last chance agreement".
The incident was not down to "racial bias", the investigation found.
However, Hoffmeyer told the AP back in June that the district never questioned him or his daughter, adding: "Who did they talk to? Did they really do an investigation?"
Per CBS News, Mount Pleasant school board president Amy Bond said in a statement on September 16 that the district is yet to receive the lawsuit, but she is "confident that the facts will prevail given our district's appropriate and aggressive response to the incident and the findings of the third-party investigation that was conducted."
Bond added: "We will aggressively defend against these baseless allegations in court and will not allow this to distract us from our mission to provide every child a world-class education that prepares them for college and careers."
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