JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Duval County Public Schools teacher who said she is banned from teaching after displaying a Black Lives Matter flag above her classroom door is suing the district.
Amy Donofrio has been teaching for 13 years and taught at Robert E. Lee High School for nine years.
“During my time in the classroom I have seen and reported some really concerning things,” Donofrio said.
Donofrio said she’s seen her students burdened with emotional turmoil in the last year and wanted to support them with a Black Lives Matter flag above her classroom door.
“It was to make sure our students know our classroom is a safe place where they are valued, they are respected, and they can just breathe in,” Donofrio said.
She was ordered by an administrator to take it down.
“He was unable to provide any policy that it violated, and I couldn’t in good conscience take something down that represented my students’ humanity,” Donofrio said.
School administrators removed the flag, and Donofrio was reassigned to non-teaching duties, pending an investigation into potential misconduct, Donofrio said.
“To this day, to know and see how my students felt when they came into the school and that flag was down at Robert E. Lee High School,” Donofrio said with tears. “I to this day don’t know what to say other than I stand with my students and they matter.”
Donofrio along with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Scott, Wagner And Associates Law Firm are suing the district, seeking to reinstate Donofrio as a teacher and to ban school policies preventing educators from exercising their first amendment rights.
“When someone does what’s right and speaks out for what is wrong, and the suffer retribution, that’s wrong,” said Cathleen Scott, with the Scot Wagner and Associates Law Group. “And the legal system can offer retribution for that.”
Donofrio announced the lawsuit on Facebook early Friday and within hours it has been shared more than 2,000 times.
DCPS said it is are unable to comment on the matter at this time.