DETROIT – A civil rights group says a Michigan teacher has been fired for encouraging her students to organize a fundraiser for the family of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer.
The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., said Monday that Brooke Harris was dismissed from Pontiac Academy for Excellence Middle School in March because school administrators opposed the fund drive.
The group says the students wanted to pay $1 each to attend school wearing hoodies one day instead of school uniform. Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was killed. No charges have been filed.
Superintendent Jacqueline Cassell says she doesn't oppose the activism but that the effort would have distracted students from their studies.