A Rochester mom is “shocked” and “disgusted” after she says her daughter Nicarri’s name has been mispronounced as a racial slur multiple times in automated calls from the city’s school district.
Nicomi Stewart told WHAM TV that she was in disbelief after receiving a robocall informing her that her daughter had not arrived at Edison Career and Technology High School — and that instead of correctly pronouncing Nicarri’s name, the automated call pronounced it as the N-word.
At first, Stewart thought she couldn’t have heard the message correctly, but when she received a second automated call from the district, she recorded it on voicemail and heard that it clearly said: “This is Edison Career and Technology High School. Your daughter, N— has missed period one on…”
“I was like, ‘Wow, am I really hearing you correctly, did the machine just say this?’ ” Stewart told WHAM TV. “It was unbelievable. I was shocked. I was disgusted. I was upset.”
“It’s disrespectful and it’s degrading. I don’t even use that word in my house, so why is my child being called this?” she continued, pointing out that she received similar automated calls last year that correctly pronounced her daughter’s name.
The Deputy Superintendent of Administration for the Rochester City School District Lawrence Bo Wright later called Stewart to apologize, blaming the mispronunciation on a software error with the vendor it contracts with to send out automated calls.
“Representatives from the district have talked with the family and apologized profusely, as we should, Wright told WHAM TV in a follow-up story. “We can’t say enough how sorry we are.”
However, Stewart added that she’s still receiving the automated calls, despite the fact that Wright told WHAM TV that Nicarri’s name had been removed from the automated call list.
“They’re making me look like I’m slightly bananas and lying about this, when they’re saying they rectified something they haven’t rectified yet,” Stewart told the news station.
This article originally appeared on People.
