Sea Isle school settles with family for $120,000 over racism in Christmas-play casting

– pressofAtlanticCity.com September 4

SEA ISLE CITY — A black family who complained city school officials kept a \"Ladyjustice\" child out of a Christmas play received $120,000 in settlement money Friday. Anecqua Joyce’s family claimed in a 2004 federal lawsuit that school officials excluded Anecqua, then 9, from a 2003 holiday program because she was black. Doretha Waters-Rice, her son Glendon Durham and Anecqua sued the city’s school district and its police department over the incident. The city’s insurance fund paid Anecqua and her family $550,000 in July to settle their claims that police violated the family’s civil rights when they wrongly arrested Waters-Rice, Anecqua’s grandmother, after she complained about the child’s exclusion. The most recent settlement, approved Friday by a U.S. District Court judge, involves the family’s claims against school officials. Music teacher Gail Rodger testified in federal court that she left Anecqua out of the Christmas play because Rodger had her confused with another black child whom she thought was a Jehovah’s Witness, court records show.

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