The Black Wisconsin high school superintendent who was pushed by a white father at a graduation ceremony on May 31 is speaking out.
Dr. Rainey Briggs, who is the head of Baraboo School District, stated that an apology from Matthew Eddy is essentially worthless. “An apology just doesn’t make things go away,” Briggs explained to the Daily Mail on Tuesday.
“The outreach was really to indicate that he, Matthew, understands his mishap in terms of what he did, what he’s caused. He’s remorseful,” Briggs continued. “I took that as some form of apology, but that’s not something I think at this time amounts to a solid apology, from my perspective.
“I don’t think an apology, an ‘I’m sorry,’ makes this go away because there’s a lot of harm that was caused.” The damning footage from the graduation shows Eddy pushing Briggs aside as his daughter was receiving her diploma, saying “I don’t want her touching him.”
Footage of the incident went viral on social media, with many condemning the father’s actions. Ultimately, Eddy was forced to leave the building and was arrested for disorderly conduct. In addition, Briggs took out a restraining order against him.
Eddy said that he pushed Briggs as a response to Briggs rolling his eyes during a disciplinary hearing when his daughter was dealing with expulsion.
In a video obtained by WISN, Eddy told authorities: “I did not want him to be able to shake her f**king hand because he does not deserve it from her, after all the s**t she went through in this district.
“He rolled his eyes when I brought up the fact the same thing happened to her and it pissed me off. She was expelled for doing the same thing that was done to her, and nothing was done to the previous people.”
Briggs believes that Eddy ruined the ceremomy for the rest of the graduates.
“This is a moment in time for them that they’ll never get back the way they had hoped for this to go,” he said. “That was to walk across that stage with excitement, feeling like they’ve learned a lot, feeling like they’d experienced some amazing teachers. That was all to some degree pushed aside that particular night.”