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A28 u.s. news
Diahuebs 2 December 2021

Death of bullied Utah girl draws anger over suicides, racism

Black students throughout
the district told investiga- Youth suicides in Utah have
tors about people referring leveled off in recent years
to them as monkeys or apes after an alarming spike from
and saying that their skin was 2011 to 2015, but the rate
dirty or looked like feces. remains sharply higher than
Students also made monkey the national average. The
noises at their Black peers, state’s 2020 per capita rate
repeatedly referenced slavery was 8.85 suicides among 10-
and lynching and told Black to 17-year-olds per 100,000,
students to “go pick cotton” compared with 2.3 suicides
and “you are my slave,” ac- per 100,000 nationally in
cording to the department’s 2019, the latest year with data
findings. available.

The district has agreed to Tributes to Izzy are scat-
take several steps as part of tered on social media under
a settlement agreement, in- #standforizzy. The Utah Jazz
cluding establishing a new basketball team honored her
department to handle com- at a recent game, and players
plaints, offering more train- Donovan Mitchell and Joe
(AP) — When her 10-year- Asian American students ac- bullying, racism and the im- ing and collecting data. Ingles, who has an autistic
old daughter tried spray- count for roughly 1% of the portance of understanding son, both expressed dismay
ing air freshener on herself approximately 73,000 stu- autism so that no other par- Tichenor-Cox told the AP over what happened, calling
before school one morn- dents, initially defended its ent has to suffer like she is. she doesn’t trust the district’s it “disgusting.” Other par-
ing, Brittany Tichenor- handling of the bullying al- investigation and said the ents from the school district
Cox suspected something legations but later launched As she looked at a picture on district has zero credibility. have sent letters to the school
was wrong with the sweet an outside investigation that her cellphone of Izzy smil- Instead, her attorney, Tyler board calling out the district’s
little girl whose beaming is ongoing. ing with fresh braids in her Ayres, hired a private investi- “dismissive actions.”
smile had gone dormant hair last May, Tichenor-Cox gator to do their own probe
after she started the fifth “When I was crying out teared up as she realized that as Tichenor-Cox considers Tichenor-Cox and her hus-
grade. for help for somebody to was her last birthday with her possible legal action. band, Charles Cox, have five
do something, nobody dear daughter who dreamed other children to focus on, so
She coaxed out of Isabella even showed up for her,” of being a professional danc- She and Ayres also said the they’re doing all they can to
“Izzy” Tichenor that a boy in Tichenor-Cox said this week er. Justice Department is look- handle the grief while trying
her class told her she stank in an interview with The As- ing into what happened with to remember the sparkle Izzy
after their teacher instructed sociated Press. ”It just hurts “No parent should have to Izzy. The agency would not brought to their lives for a
the class that they needed to to know that my baby was bury their 10-year old,” she say if it’s investigating what decade.
shower. It was the latest in bullied all day throughout said. “I’m still in shock. ... happened to Izzy at the
a series of bullying episodes school — from the time I This pushes me to get this school but said in a state- “I want her to be remem-
that targeted Izzy, who was dropped her off to the time I out there like this. Mommy ment Wednesday that it is bered of how kind she was,
autistic and the only Black picked her up.” is pushing to make sure that saddened by her death and how beautiful she was, how
student in class. Other inci- this don’t happen to nobody aware of reports she was ha- brilliant she was and intel-
dents included harassment Being autistic made it dif- else.” rassed because of her race ligent she was,” Tichenor-
about her skin color, eye- ficult for Izzy to find words and “disability.” The depart- Cox said. “Because if I keep
brows and a beauty mark on to express what she was feel- Davis School District spokes- ment said it is committed to thinking of what happened,
her forehead, her mother ing, but her mother sensed man Christopher Williams ensuring the school district it’s just going to put me back,
said. her daughter was internal- declined to provide an exact follows through on the plan and I’m trying to be strong
izing the messages from timeline on the investigation, established in the settlement for her.”
Tichenor-Cox informed the school. She asked her mother reveal the employment status agreement.
teacher, the school and the to get rid of the beauty mark of Izzy’s teacher or respond
district about the bullying. and shave her unibrow. Her to any direct accusations.
She said nothing was done to mother told her those fea-
improve the situation. Then tures made her different and He did say in a statement
on Nov. 6, at their home near beautiful. She told her moth- Wednesday that an inde-
Salt Lake City, Izzy died by er her teacher didn’t like her pendent investigative team
suicide. and wouldn’t say hi or help is working “urgently” and
with schoolwork. that findings will be released
Her shocking death triggered when finished. In a previous
an outpouring of anger about Izzy’s mother, 31, blames the statement from last month,
youth suicides, racism in the teacher for allowing the bul- when the district pledged to
classroom and the treatment lying to happen. Prior to this do an outside investigation, it
of children with autism — year, she said, Izzy and two of said it would review its “han-
issues that have been high- her other children liked the dling of critical issues, such
lighted by the nation’s racial school. as bullying, to provide a safe
reckoning and a renewed and welcoming environment
emphasis on student mental Tichenor-Cox has also called for all.”
health during the COVID-19 out deep-rooted racism in
pandemic. the predominantly white The Justice Department in-
state of Utah, where she said vestigation uncovered hun-
In Utah, the suicide also in- the N-word that kids called dreds of documented uses
tensified questions about the her when she was a child in of the N-word and other
Davis School District, which the 1990s is still hurled at her racial epithets over the last
was recently reprimanded by children three decades later. five years in the district. The
the Justice Department for probe also found physical as-
failing to address widespread But she doesn’t want fury saults, derogatory racial com-
racial discrimination. to be her only message. She ments and harsher discipline
vows to make Izzy’s life mat- for students of color.
The district, where Black and ter by speaking out about