Bronx Educator Files Lawsuit Claiming She Was Fired for Refusing to Pose in Black Panther Salute for Photos
The head of Community School District 12 in the Bronx has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education claiming that she was fired for refusing to do a “Black Panther salute” in photos.
Rafaela Espinal claims in her lawsuit that they were forced by the superintendent to do the salute to Black power from the 2018 comic-book movie “Black Panther” in photos — or else.
Espinal’s lawyers say that their client declined to do the salute because it “introduced a racial divide where there should be none.”
The photos were taken during official gatherings of high-level Department of Education bosses, at the urging of then-Bronx superintendent Meisha Ross Porter, who claims her father was a member of militant civil rights group the Black Panther Party.
