An incident at Chapel Hill High prompts NAACP involvement

An incident at Chapel Hill High School has raised questions about how schools approach discipline for violent behavior — especially when the students involved are racial minorities.

Alexandra Benavides, a 15-year-old Chapel Hill High School freshman, said she was approached by a group of girls at school and attacked by one of the girls.

A video of the incident shows the girl shouting at Benavides before beginning to hit her and pull her hair after she tries to walk away. Photos from the day of the incident show Benavides’ bloodied knee from being pushed to the ground.

For Benavides’ parents, the disturbing part of the incident has not so much been the altercation itself but the school’s lack of response, said Sara Salgado, Benavides’ mother.

“It’s very sad to hear this happened to my daughter,” she said. “I also don’t want anyone else to have this same situation, because it’s hard. We send our kids to school and think they’re safe and nothing’s going to happen.”

The Reverend Robert Campbell, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, said students who are minorities are less likely to be treated as victims in incidents of violence and that the school should have investigated this incident further.

“Why don’t we have resource officers in the school? Why don’t we have security in the school?” he said.

“There’s too much violence going on in the schools that’s going unchecked.”

After seeing her daughter come home with bruises and a bloodied lip, Salgado said she kept her home from school the next day and went to report the incident to Chapel Hill police as well as to school administrators but was told that her daughter was suspended.

Salgado said administrators told her that disciplinary policies dictated that the incident was considered a fight and not an assault, since the video showed Benavides putting her hands up.

The CHCCS board policy on fights, assaults and discipline procedures states, “Investigations of fights will include the determination of self-defense.”

In 2015, Chapel Hill’s Campaign for Equity, an organization comprising Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools teachers, students, parents and members of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, published a report on the state of racial equity in CHCCS.

According to the report, Hispanic and Latino students in the district were more than twice as likely as white students to receive suspensions between 2012 and 2015. Black students were more than four times as likely to be suspended.

When Salgado brought the video of the incident to Chapel Hill High School administrators, she said they finally agreed not to suspend Benavides any longer — but that meant the girl who hit her would have her suspension shortened as well. Meanwhile, Salgado said administrators offered little help to keep her daughter away from the girl.

“I don’t get any support from them to make sure this does not happen again or this girl is stopped,” she said.

Jeffrey Nash, spokesman for CHCCS, said pieces are missing from Benavides and her parents’ account of the story.

“Unfortunately, I am legally prohibited from sharing those details,” he said.

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