A white teacher in Rochester, N.Y. accused of having his Black students pick cotton during a history lesson filed a lawsuit Friday (June 17) against those who allegedly made him a victim by misrepresentations of what actually happened in the classroom, the Associated Press reports.

According to a lawsuit filed by Patrick Rausch, the false allegations that appeared in the media resulted in officials placing him on administrative leave and barring him from entering school property and having any contact with staff members or school administration. It names two parents, the social justice nonprofit group Save Rochester Inc. and its executive director Michael Johnson as defendants.

Rausch said in the lawsuit that he brought unprocessed cotton in April to his seventh-grade social studies classroom, comprised mostly of Black students, the AP noted. He intended to demonstrate the difficulty of removing cotton seeds by hand. Rausch claims that he made it clear that the activity was voluntary.

"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,” The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle quotes the lawsuit.

"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...

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