Parents outraged after students receive test with question about 'big booties'
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Someone, somewhere, thought this was an appropriate question to put on a high school test about genetics: "LaShamanda has a heterozygous big bootie, the dominant trait. Her man Fontavius has a small bootie which is recessive. They get married and have a baby named LaPrincess. What is the probability that LaPrincess will inherit her mama's big bootie?"
A Charlotte, North Carolina, mother was upset when she found out her child had to answer this question. "I was completely stunned," the unidentified woman told WBTV. "This is not appropriate language at all for the children in the school." The woman says that after she complained, the teacher emailed her back, saying the test had been passed down to her from other teachers and she was sorry if "the question offended you or your child."
A spokesperson for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools told WBTV "the worksheet does not appear to be a document created by CMS. The school has taken the worksheet out of circulation and requested its teachers to discontinue using it."
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
