Filed at 09:12 PM

The Ithaca City School District’s Board of Education voted unanimously tonight to file objections in the case brought against it by Amelia Kearney, who alleged that the district failed to protect her daughter from racial harassment while at school.

Last week, Administrative Law Judge Christine Marbach Kellett recommended that the district should have done more to protect Kearney’s daughter and should pay the family $1 million in damages. Board president Thomas Frank said the district will hold a press conference Friday to discuss the specifics of their appeal.

The recommendation came two years after Kearney’s then 12-year-old daughter, Epiphany, was racially harassed at DeWitt Middle School. In hearings, the district admitted that within a five-month period it did not do enough to protect Epiphany from repeated instances of racial harassment during the 2005–06 academic year. Kearney is a 37-year-old student at Ithaca College majoring in sociology.

Check theithacan.org for updates.