Months after the Rim of the World Unified School District was embroiled in controversy over the Confederate flag, a district employee mock-lynched a black baby doll on a public bulletin board. It was removed only after a parent complained to district officials.

“‘This can’t really be what I think it is,’” Jenny Thompson recalled.

Thompson works for Rim of the World as a midday playground monitor at Valley of Enchantment Elementary School and as a substitute instructional aide for special education students. But on May 25, she was at the district’s bus depot purely as a parent.

“I was there to pick up release forms from the office, so I could drive my children on field trips,” Thompson said.

Walking up the ramp to the trailer that serves as the dispatch office, she spotted the doll, hanging by its neck, through the window.

Thompson went into the office and took a picture of the doll, then drove to the district office to complain.

“The district takes any allegations of discriminatory or unfair practices very seriously,” said Larry King, assistant superintendent for personnel and pupil services.

“Consequently, the district began its investigation immediately after we became aware of the allegations. This was a personnel matter and the investigation was concluded before the start of the school year.

“We are unable to comment any further on this matter as we may not infringe upon the privacy rights of our employees. The investigation revealed no discriminatory intent by any employee, but did demonstrate a lack of sensitivity,” he said.

Doll seized from students

The doll, with the noose already attached, was confiscated from children on a Rim of the World school bus, according to a June 23 article in The Black Voice News that cited anonymous sources. It was hung up early in the week, according to brothers Harry and Shane McLelland.

The McLellands, both of whom are white, work for Rim of the World as maintenance workers and as part-time bus drivers, covering routes when there aren’t enough substitute bus drivers available.

“I went in to find out what bus route I was doing, because I was bus driving, not maintenance that morning,” Shane McLelland said. “I was looking at the whiteboard and (another employee) walked past me. She had this doll in her hand.”

The woman was a retired bus driver temporarily filling in.

“When I looked over, she had hung it up on this bulletin board,” Shane McLelland said. “As she walked past me, I said, ‘That’s wrong in so many ways.’ And she just laughed.”

Harry McLelland walked in a moment later to check on his route.

“I immediately saw the doll and the first words out of my mouth were, ‘I am really offended by that,’” Harry McLelland said. “We drive kids to school every day and it’s our job to make sure they get there safely, (that) they’re not being bullied or anything like that.”

Like his brother, Harry McLelland demanded the doll be taken down from the bulletin board where it dangled, a string around its neck.

“I turned around to (the woman) and said, ‘You need to take that down. You need to take that down now,’” Harry McLelland said. “And she just sat there and laughed, and that offended me even more.”

Both brothers left the office upset.

“There was no way I was going to touch it and remove it, because it’s just going to create an atmosphere of retaliation,” Harry McLelland said.

The transportation dispatch trailer where the doll was hanging was the office of Jennifer Kawell, the district’s coordinator of transportation. It’s a small office with only two desks. She and the woman who put the doll up are friends, the drivers said.

Kawell declined to comment for this article, referring all questions to King, the assistant superintendent.

“You couldn’t miss it,” said bus driver Sandi Renfroe, who first saw the doll May 23. “It’s only like an 8-by-20 trailer, if even that.”

Renfroe said half-a-dozen other drivers privately expressed concerns to her about the doll.

“I said, ‘What’s with that’ and pointed. And Jen laughed,” Renfroe said. “It’s totally inappropriate, even if we weren’t in a business with kids.”

Harry McLelland went to Kawell and demanded the doll be taken down, he said.

“‘That’s a black baby that’s hanging up. That’s wrong,”’ he recalled saying. “‘You need to remove it.’”

The doll remained up for most of the week until Thompson spotted it.

“Obviously, (the woman) didn’t care, Jen didn’t care,” Harry McLelland said. “What do you do with people like that?”

In the 2016-17 school year, only 1 percent of Rim of the World Unified’s 3,521 students were African-American, according to the California Department of Education.

An ‘unmistakable’ act

It would be hard to view a black baby doll dangling at the end of a cord, suspended by its neck, as anything other than as a simulated lynching, said Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

“We don’t know what the intent was of the person posting it, but it would be incredible that any living adult would not know the vicious, brutal, racist history of almost 4,100 African-Americans who have been lynched in the United States,” he said.

Levin said there have been a “spate” of nooses cropping up around the country this year.

In March, a noose was found hanging outside an Orlando middle school. In May, nooses were found in a University of Maryland fraternity house, a Maryland middle school, around the campus of American University and outside the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. In June, a noose was found in the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and an employee at the United States Mint in Philadelphia brought a noose to the desk of an African-American co-worker.

And on Monday, a sign warning the “day of the rope is coming” was placed near the front door of a predominantly African-American church in Virginia.

It’s possible that mock-lynching the doll in the Rim of the World office is a crime. In 2009, the California Legislature added the noose to the state’s existing hate crime law, making hanging a noose “for the purpose of terrorizing any person who attends or works at the school, park, or place of employment, or who is otherwise associated with the school, park, or place of employment,” a crime punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $15,000, or both.

“Putting a noose around a black child’s neck is an unmistakable and disgusting representation of the over 4,000 racial lynchings that took place in the United States and this commands a full investigation by all relevant authorities,” Levin said.

The incident was not reported to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, according to Morgan Haley, King’s administrative assistant.

‘You can’t do these things’

Thompson said those responsible for mock-lynching the black doll should lose their jobs.

“I want to see whoever put it there fired or disciplined. Preferably fired,” she said. “And the person who allowed it to be there.”

The woman who hung up the doll was back in the dispatch office only temporarily when the incident occurred in May. She had her assignment terminated early, according to King. But she is still on the list of substitute employees available to the district, Haley said.

In August, Kawell hung a picture of her friend up in a place of honor in the new dispatch office, according to Renfroe. King said he hadn’t seen the picture in Kawell’s office.

“If just they removed her and put her back to be driver, that would be fine,” Shane McLelland said. “Maybe that will wake her up: You can’t do these things.”

Kawell’s son, Logan, spoke to the Rim of the World school board last fall, in support of students flying Confederate flags at Rim of the World High School, an activity other students said was threatening and racist.

“I believe the Virginia Army flag, or ‘rebel flag,’ represents not oppression and prejudice, but freedom from tyranny and oppression,” Logan Kawell told the board. “Even if you think it is prejudiced, you do not have the right to interfere with someone else’s life because they think differently about it.”

Two responses

On Friday, newly appointed Rim of the World Unified Superintendent Michelle Murphy released a statement on the district’s Facebook page, calling this article an “inaccurate account” of a “long-concluded issue.”

“The article severely distorts what occurred,” Murphy’s statement said. “The district investigated the issues at the time and took appropriate action.

“While the article, by its unfortunate slant, attempts to portray some of our employees as racist, it does not reflect the actions or views of the Rim of the World Unified School District or our transportation department. We strive to make our district an inclusive and welcoming environment for students and families, and a positive workplace for employees.”

Murphy did not respond to multiple requests for clarification Friday on what she considered inaccurate, but that afternoon the district posted a second statement online, replacing the first.

Murphy’s revised statement acknowledged that administrators were aware of the incident in June.

“This was an incredibly insensitive lapse of judgement by individuals who violated the core values of our school district. At the time, district leaders investigated the incident and took immediate and appropriate action to discipline the employees involved,” the statement said. “Racism, intolerance, and racially insensitive behavior will not be tolerated by any adult or child in Rim of the World schools.

“Since my arrival in mid-July, I have been assured that transportation employees have been counseled individually and have undergone racial sensitivity training as a staff,” her second statement said.

Thompson, the parent who first spotted the doll hanging in the office, said the incident has tainted her view of mountain living.

She and her family have lived in the district for five years, moving there from Long Beach so her sons could grow up in a small town like she did.

“If I had known what the culture was on the mountain, I never would have moved here,” she said.