AUBURN – An Auburn school bus driver discriminated against a Somali boy when he refused to let him on the bus, an investigator for the Maine Human Rights Commission has found.
The driver thought the 13-year-old was lying when he said he lived near Pleasant Street and not Valerie Circle, where some other Somali families live. According to the investigator’s report, the driver told the boy, “Somalis do not take this bus.”
The Maine Human Rights Commission is expected to rule on the case Sept. 19.
The incident occurred in October 2003 when the boy, then a seventh-grader, tried to board an after-school bus at Auburn Middle School. The school system had been having problems with students taking the wrong buses, and the driver had been told to direct Valerie Circle students to a different bus, according to the report.
Because many of the Valerie Circle students are Somali, the driver didn’t believe the boy when he said he lived near Pleasant Street. He told the investigator that the boy also seemed evasive and did not know his house number.
He refused to let the boy ride.
Another student, who is not Somali, then told the driver the boy was his neighbor and really did live near Pleasant Street. The driver let that student on, but he still refused the Somali boy, the report said.
After the incident, the school system reprimanded the driver, suspended him for one day without pay and made him attend a workshop led by Stephen Wessler, director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. According to the report, the driver admitted his words and actions were inappropriate.
Abdiaziz Ali, the boy’s father, brought the case to the Maine Human Rights Commission last year. Over the summer, an investigator found the driver stereotyped and discriminated against the boy because of his race, color and national origin.
Ali could not be reached for comment at his home or through his attorney.
In an e-mail, Superintendent Barbara Eretzian said the school system abhors any action that degrades, humiliates or devalues anyone. But she maintained the school system is not liable for the driver’s “isolated act.”
School officials will have the opportunity to object to the investigator’s findings on Sept. 19. Eretzian was not sure whether they would.
The bus driver resigned after the incident and is no longer driving for the Auburn school system.
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