Millbury Public Schools in Massachusetts has agreed to compensate two Black sisters who said classmates called them “monkey” and used the N-word for months while the school looked away. The amount was not disclosed.
The district also agreed to revise its Civil Rights Grievance Procedures. Superintendent Greg Myers said the settlement involved “no admission of wrongdoing” and was reached to avoid protracted litigation, as the Boston Globe reported Oct. 26. He described the procedural changes as “limited clarification” of what the district already does.
Melody and Kamora Dabney, who were 13 and 16 when their family went public, attended Millbury Memorial Junior/Senior High School, where about 5% of students are Black. Their mother, Trusha Vilvar, filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in September 2024, represented by the group Lawyers for Civil Rights.
The complaint described a school year of taunts about the girls’ skin and hair, including remarks that they were “too dark.” It said a white classmate handed Kamora a note containing a racial slur as part of what students treated as a running joke. A social media message told the sisters to go back to their “motherland.”
What happened next is the heart of the complaint. When Kamora tore up the note, it said, she was suspended, and the librarian’s report left out that the note was racial. The complaint also said the younger sister received a one-day suspension over a ponytail, and that the sisters were suspended more than once while the students who harassed them faced no consequences. The family said reports were brushed aside unless backed by “four to five witnesses.”
Lawyers for Civil Rights attorney Mirian Albert said at the time that the school “relied on racist and harmful stereotypes about” the girls instead of protecting them. Myers said then that the district took such allegations seriously, handled them under its Title VI procedures and welcomed a federal review. Title VI is the federal law that bars discrimination by schools that receive federal money.
In a district where Black students are one in 20, a witness requirement is hard for a Black child to meet, and a report is easy to wave off. That is the mechanism the family described: the Black child reports abuse and is the one disciplined.
Because the matter ended in a settlement, no court or agency has ruled on whether the school discriminated. The revised grievance procedures are the only public term of the deal. Whether Millbury will publish them has not been reported.
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