Nine year old Emanyea Lockett, a fourth grader at a North Carolina school, was suspended from school for two days when he told a friend that he thought his teacher was “cute”.
Emanyea Lockett told local WSOC news:
“I was talking to my friend and I said Miss Taylor was cute.”
“That’s all I said,” the boy continued.
A substitute teacher at Brookside Elementary School overheard the remark, told the principal, and then the principal suspended the boy for two days.
Emanyea Lockett’s mother thinks that his punishment is far more severe than the crime.
“It’s not like he went up to the woman and tried to grab her in a sexual way,” Chiquita Lockett said.
“Why would he be suspended for two days?”
One local broadcast pointed out the irony that Emanyea Lockett, a fourth grader was being accused of sexual harassment, even though he does not know what the term means.
A school representative for the district, located just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, said that the details of the suspension were not available.
She did tell local reporters that the incident related to “inappropriate behavior after making inappropriate statements”.
