Spence School says judge shouldn’t mete out discipline in suit over ‘racist’ student

The tony Spence School says it’s not right for a judge to be making educational and disciplinary decisions that should be settled by a principal, according to their response to a suit by the family of a student who says she was unfairly labeled as racist.

“Every day, private school teachers and administrators across the State make decisions in the pursuit of educating their students … some pa🃏rents are unhappy about some of those decisions,” wrote Michael Baughman, the lawyer for the Upper East Side all-girls school, in a motio🅷n to dismiss the lawsuit brought by disgruntled parents Adam and Michelle Parker.

“Those parents are free to complain to the school. Or to enroll th💯eir children elsewhere. But they are not entitled to have a member of the New York judiciary second-guess the school’s decision.”

The Parkers sued on behalf of their daughter — referred to in court papers as D.P. — in May, claiming a misunders🀅tanding over her Instagram post that was interpreted by some students as ra🀅cist.

Those students then reported her, and the school held two school assemblies about it, gave her a half-day suspension and ordered her to make “racialized” apologies to the “offended” students, all without the school reading the posts or conducting a full investigation first, the parents claimed.

“At bottom, this is a simple dispute over a half-day that D.P. spent at home to consider h🐎ow her words may have affected others,” Baughman said in the court documents.

Baughman said the ♐suit was excessively long and was a media grab that is full of “scandalous allegations” ab💦out 11 other students.

The laws⛎uit only refers to the other students by initials, but the school says everyone in the community knows their identities.

“The Parkers ಌcan choose to entangle their own child in this litigation. But they should not be allowed to make that choice for other parents’ children.”

“Spence is not above the law, and its status as a private school does not give it license to defame a minor,” the Parkers’ lawyer, Elizabeth Locke said. “It is unconscionable that Spence was happy to spread false information about D.P., and now continues its efforts to cover up overt racism by the Lady Memes, which was tolerated by a large swath of the Spence comm❀unity.”