Pender County Schools racial slur investigation report to be released Wednesday

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — On Tuesday, the Pender County Board of Education voted unanimously to release the results of an investigation into a staff member allegedly using a racial slur towards a student.

In June, the board hired law firm Blue LLC out of Raleigh to conduct an independent investigation after an employee posted on social media alleging a coworker used the inappropriate language.

This past weekend, Pender County NAACP president Reverend Dante Murphy and other community advocates learned that the investigation had been completed weeks ago but the results were not released. This prompted emails to the board demanding transparency.

At the board’s regular meeting Tuesday, Chair Don Hall could not say if any staff members would face punishment.

“The report is the report and it is what it is,” Hall said. “So people will have to make their own decisions once it’s released to the public, otherwise I can’t say anything until it is, as far as the details, that kind of thing. It’ll just be up to the reader.”

Murphy responded to Hall’s comments, calling them ‘reckless.’

“What he was telling you is, ‘we’re not going to do anything,'” Murphy said. “That was his response, ‘we’ll let the public decide.’ That’s the most absurd answer that a public official could give regarding a report that cost multiple thousands of dollars.”

Hall later clarified through a schools spokesperson that he was speaking about the public judging the report and not the persons involved.

When asked why the report had not been released for close to a month after being completed, Hall stated that student names and other sensitive information had to be redacted from the 200-page document.

The report will be available to the public the end of the business day on Wednesday.

Click here to watch the full meeting.

Click here to view the agenda.