Teacher suspended for insensitive remark

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., March 12 (UPI) -- A black teacher in South Florida has been suspended for calling a black student "chocolate" during a classroom confrontation more than a year ago.

The Broward County School Board Monday approved the disciplinary measures recommended by an administrative law judge, The Miami Herald Reported. The judge said Leslie Rainer should be suspended for a week and required to undergo diversity training.

Before Rainer challenged the proceedings last year, the board approved a two-week suspension.

Rainer's lawyer, Robert McKee, argued that as a black woman she was simply teasing the student at Blanche Ely High School when she called him "little chocolate boy." But Carmen Rodriguez, a lawyer for the district, said the incident ended with his classmates laughing at the boy.

"He found it offensive, he found it hurtful, and he was so frustrated because he couldn't respond, because this was a teacher," Rodriguez said.

In 2010, Rainer was cleared of charges that she and another teacher sprinkled holy water on an atheist colleague. The same judge who recommended the suspension found "no competent evidence" that Rainer told three Haitian students: "I wish they would put you in a boat and send you back where you came from."