Laguna Beach school district vows to fight ruling that student’s suspension in watermelon incident be erased

Laguna Beach Unified School District officials filed a notice this week to appeal an Orange County Superior Court judge’s ruling that a suspension be removed from the record of a student disciplined in connection with a racially charged episode in which a watermelon was thrown at the home of a black classmate in December 2016.

Despite the ruling, district officials have not removed the suspension from the student’s record, opting instead to appeal the judgment.

However, during a hearing Thursday, the judge, Ronald Bauer, ordered the district to expunge the student’s record regardless of its appeal, according to Mark Rosen, an attorney representing the student’s family.

An appeal typically keeps a judge’s decision from taking effect, but if that delay causes harm, the court can allow the judgment to be imposed. Rosen argued that a suspension on the student’s record could affect his chances of being accepted to college.

The student, an 18-year-old Laguna Beach High School senior who is not identified in court records, was removed from school for three days in January.

“It affects this kid’s life. It’s pretty important,” Rosen said. “I’m surprised the district is fighting it so hard.”

The district did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment about Thursday’s hearing.

A statement from district officials Wednesday said their appeal is “based on the belief that the decision was wrong factually and legally, and an appellate court should, therefore, review it.”

Maurice Possley and his wife, Cathleen Falsani, who are white, contended shortly after the Dec. 27 incident that their adopted son, Vasco, then 17, was targeted because he is black.

Five students reportedly were present when, according to court records, one threw the watermelon and another yelled a racially insensitive remark before driving away.

The student who was suspended has said he did not participate in the actions but was with the group at the time, according to court records.

The records don’t specify whether any other students were suspended, though others were “disciplined.”

The suspended student’s family filed a lawsuit against the district in May, alleging that it acted improperly “to be politically correct and to try to appear to the community like the district was taking action.” They requested that the district remove the suspension from the student’s record, according to the filing.

On Oct. 6, Bauer ruled in favor of the student, saying there was no evidence that he had used racially insensitive language, threw the watermelon or encouraged his classmates to do so.

“The court has concluded that no reasoned exercise of discretion can be applied to the known facts of student’s conduct in a manner that would justify the suspension that was imposed,” Bauer wrote in his ruling.

Bauer also disagreed with the district’s assertion that it has the ability to punish students for events occurring “at any time.” He said the California Education Code limits the time frame of a district’s authority related to discipline.

A district news release states the school board is concerned that the student’s attorneys, his parents and the judge have seemed to “cast aside the significance of the act and the impact on the victim with arguments that the district was being politically correct and finding scapegoats.”

“The decisions of district staff and the board, from the discipline decision after the investigation through and including the decision to appeal, have been driven by our commitment to our students and our community,” board President Jan Vickers said in the release.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN