An Associated Press dispatch from St. Louis, November 19, 1996:

A high school teacher fired for letting her students use profanity in skits and poems was awarded $750,000 after a federal trial.

Cissy Lacks, a 25-year teaching veteran, called Monday's decision against the Ferguson-Florissant School District "a really important statement." The district plans to appeal.

Lacks was fired from her job at Berkeley High School after the school board found out she had allowed 11th-graders to use street language in a creative writing assignment. A federal judge reinstated her in August.

Some of the student skits were videotaped in October 1994 and shown to school officials. District lawyers said students uttered a profanity every 12 seconds on average.

Jurors awarded Lacks $500,000 for the claim that she didn't get reasonable notice of her dismissal and that a ban on classroom profanity served no legitimate academic purpose.

They awarded her $250,000 on a race discrimination claim. Lacks, who is white, said black school officials objected to black students using profanity on videotape. She contended race was a motivation in the way she was treated.

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