BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) – Diversity and discrimination were hot topics at Brattleboro Union High School this past week, after a black student was effectively expelled for fighting – fights the student said were spurred by racial harassment and a lack of proper attention from staff.

In light of the action, others offered their own stories of harassment at BUHS, and dozens of students protested. Racism, some said, has a strong presence at the school.

School administrators and staff reply that they’ve worked hard to combat discrimination at BUHS. And this week, school leaders announced plans to step up discussion of race, on top of an already existing diversity curriculum and tough anti-harassment policies.

“There’s always going to be at least a low level of insidious tension,” said Ron Stahley, superintendent of Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, adding that the school has taken steps to address it.

Just this year, the school district launched $68,000 program that follows an Anti-Defamation League model for learning. It’s a mandatory, semester-long course for freshmen and elements of it are integrated in regular classes for all other grades in middle and high school.

The school has been the scene of racial tensions in the past, with debates over the propriety of using a southern-style colonel as the school’s mascot and a successful suit by parents in the 1990s alleging racial discrimination.

India Martin, 17, is the 11th-grader who was suspended for the remainder of the school year on Monday, after participating in her third fight since she started at BUHS last fall.

She said the students she fought had called her racial epithets. When she asked teachers and staff to help, they didn’t take appropriate action, Martin said.

The high school board suspended her for the rest of the school year. It chose not to expel her, as school administrators recommended. The following day, about 40 students protested outside BUHS.

That news brought others forward with similar stories. “Stuff happens in the hallways,” said senior Roberta McCauley, 18. “The teachers need to pay more attention to it.”

McCauley said a few students have hurled racial slurs at her in non-classroom settings, and that her car has been vandalized in the student parking lot. She said she doesn’t always feel safe at the school.

Sometimes the issues are cultural. Students asked to form “Tha Jump-off Unit,” which Martin said was a sort of hip-hop club, and produced a poster that said, “Be ready 4 the hottest unit in town. … Holla At Your Gurls … We’re bringing a new flava to BUHS.”

Principal James Day said he allowed the club to form, but rejected the poster because he feared some students might not know the misspellings were deliberate. He also thought some of the language was insulting to women.

Martin said she and other members took Day’s decision personally, as a rejection of their culture.

“We try to make the best decisions we can,” Day said. “We try to do what we think is right given the circumstances we’re in.”