Lexington Catholic enlists help for diversity training

Lexington Catholic High School President Steve Angelucci said Friday that the school community will receive diversity and sensitivity training in the wake a 17-year-old student being charged with harassing and threatening a 14-year-old black student.

Angelucci also confirmed that Lexington Catholic has agreed to turn over the academic transcript to the public high school where the 14-year-old student is now enrolled.

Lexington police charged a 17-year-old boy Thursday with harassing communications and third-degree terroristic threatening after the mother of the 14-year-old student filed a complaint on behalf of her son. Angelucci said the 17-year-old has been suspended until a school investigation has been completed.

The Key Newsjournal reported Wednesday that a black student was harassed by teammates on Lexington Catholic’s football team.

The Key Newsjournal reported that Denisha Vinegar said she found messages to her son, DaMarco, on his computer, including a threat of lynching.

In his statement, Angelucci said “the image of Lexington Catholic presented in the article does not accurately reflect the culture of faith, caring and kindness we foster at our school. The article honestly caught us by surprise. What actually occurred and how this situation has been handled differs in some important ways from how it was described.” He did not specify what was different.

“Regardless, what is most important here is the welfare of the impacted student. We will continue to examine how our school handled the situation and to learn from this experience,” Angelucci said.

In the meantime, Angelucci said “we offer our apologies to the student and family impacted by this. We have tried unsuccessfully to contact them so we could do so directly and in-person. We will continue our attempts to do so.”

Angelucci said Lexington Catholic has reached out to Roger Cleveland, an Eastern Kentucky University associate professor and “nationally respected leader in diversity and sensitivity training.”

“In addition to short-term counsel, he will provide our school community ongoing training and workshops to assure that we learn from this difficult situation while continuing to improve our culture and appreciation of diversity,” Angelucci said.

Earlier on Friday, Amos Jones, a Washington, D.C., attorney and a Lexington native, said that he had been in touch with Lexington Catholic and that the principal had assured him that the academic transcript would be released.

Before committing to that release, Lexington Catholic had refused to release the transcript to the public high school where the 14-year-old now attends classes, Jones said.

Lexington Catholic had demanded payment from the mother when she chose to withdraw her son, Jones said.

“They said, ‘You will not get this transcript until this bill is paid,’” he said.

Jones said the public school could not ascertain the 14-year-old’s academic progress without the transcript.

Angelucci said Lexington Catholic “will arrange a favorable resolution with the family on the tuition amount due.”

Nevertheless, Jones said “there are a couple of federal problems” that Lexington Catholic “has gotten themselves into with regard to Department of Education civil rights regulations, to the extent that the school is getting Title I funds or any other kind of federal funds, which a lot of Catholic diocese schools do get. And then there is a federal hate crime statute that does not supplant state law but … allows some charges.”

A federal statute requires a fine or imprisonment or both for up to a year if someone threatens or attempts to use violence based on race. The criminal statute might be applicable to the teen who has been charged, Jones said.

Angelucci said Lexington Catholic is “handling a modern day social media issue that did not happen at our school. We have no control over what students do on the internet. Teenagers have become desensitized to hateful words and the staying power of social media and texting. We do have control over how we respond to these challenges.

“As an academic institution, we must also learn from this experience. We will become a better school community that is more inclusive, welcoming and sensitive to differences. As a Catholic faith-based school, there is no better way to embrace this Year of Mercy as we seek to improve the culture and climate in our school.”

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 12:29 PM with the headline "Lexington Catholic enlists help for diversity training."