Emotional distress over a music video is a new one, especially when it’s a song that is meant to provide hope and optimism to a group of people who have felt marginalized for years.
On Wednesday, the New Haven Register reported that the town of Vernon has to pay $100,000 to the family of a middle schooler who claims that he suffered emotional distress after he was shown the music video for the 2015 song “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar.
The lawsuit also adds that the boy’s parents were faced with paying extra tuition costs to move the boy to a new school.
Although the lawsuit is being settled now, the original suit was filed in 2022 and the classroom incident occurred in 2020, while the student was in eighth grade at Vernon Center Middle School.
According to the New Haven Register, his class was shown a documentary called “Hip Hop: Songs that Shook America’’ and it featured the song “Alright.” The lawsuit alleges that the teacher of the class knew that this student was the son of a police officer and that he had a learning disorder.
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As a result of showing the video, the lawsuit alleges, the student sustained emotional and psychological injuries and distress, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, shock, confusion, sadness, feeling unsafe, and social withdrawal, some or all of which necessitate psychological treatment and counseling and if unresolved, pose the risk of severe mental illness.
Along with physical manifestations that include nausea, headaches, and malaise, the student is also alleged to have been stigmatized for being the child of a police officer, which caused friends and others to disassociate with him, according to the lawsuit.
The teacher who showed the documentary was reprimanded at the time after parents said the content in the documentary was inappropriate. The same teacher was also reprimanded in 2004 for showing excerpts from the documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11" and later in 2006 for asking students to watch the 2006 film, “Amistad,” according to the New Haven Register.