The Rochester City School District teacher accused of having Black students pick cotton in a history lesson says in a lawsuit that the lesson has been misrepresented and he is the victim of a social media campaign of "inflammatory and untrue statements."
In the lawsuit, Patrick Rausch, who is white, acknowledged that he had brought cotton to his seventh-grade social studies class as part of a history lesson about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin but contends that the allegations about what happened in the classroom — claims that became a national news story — are untrue. He alleges that he brought a bag of unprocessed cotton into the classroom to show how difficult it was to pick seeds out by hand.
"Rausch made it clear that he was not requiring the students to touch the cotton and remove the seeds, and that it was completely voluntary for them to do so," the lawsuit states. "The students — both black and white — were eager to touch the cotton and try to remove the seeds from the cotton, and most chose to do so.
"Rausch was careful to explain to the students that he understood that some people may not be comfortable touching the cotton or picking the seeds out because such work is historically associated with slavery, that he in no way was trying to make them feel like slaves, and that participation was entirely voluntary," the suit reads.
Rausch is suing a local social justice organization, Save Rochester Inc., and two parents who made claims on social media and in media...
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