Two pupils forced out of an exclusive Californian school when “blackface” photos of them went viral have won a $US1 million (AUD$1.5 million) payout after a court agreed they were in fact wearing acne treatment masks.
A jury sided with the teenagers in a lawsuit brought against Saint Francis High School in San Francisco, a Catholic institution charging AUD$40,000 a year.
The principal gave their parents a “leave or be expelled” ultimatum after an online image circulated during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
The image showed the boys, who were 14 at the time it was taken, and a third white boy, posing in a mirror with their faces apparently blacked up.
Even though it was posted on social media in 2017, it did not go viral until three years later when race tensions were inflamed by the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
The boys’ parents said their faces were simply covered in a dark green acne medication “with neither ill intent nor racist motivation, nor even knowledge of what ‘blackface’ meant”.
But the school’s principal Katie Teekel allegedly insisted that Saint Francis had suffered great “harm”.
She told the parents of one of the boys he could “voluntarily” withdraw, with the incident scrubbed from his record.
However, the boy then encountered problems at his new school when Saint Francis disclosed that he had left to avoid disciplinary action.
The school was found guilty of failing to carry out a proper investigation and breach of an oral contract.
The boys – referred to as AH and HH – were each awarded AUD$760,000 and AUD$106,000 in tuition reimbursements.
Their lawyer, Krista Baughman, said: “Our primary goal was to clear (our clients’) names.”
A spokesman for the school said it was considering appealing against the decision.