Parents of a black teenager in Texas are suing their Houston-area school district after three white middle school personnel used a marker to blot out a design in their son’s scalp.

The federal civil rights lawsuit was filed Sunday against the Pearland Independent School District and the three staff members of Berry Miller Junior High who used the marker to color the student’s scalp.

The three claimed that his “common African American ‘fade’ haircut violated the Pearland ISD dress code policy,” the lawsuit reads.

The school’s assistant principal threatened to suspend the boy if he did not have his scalp design colored. The design stood out even more when that was done, so school personnel proceeded to color his entire scalp with black marker.

“They laughed as they took many minutes to color 13-year-old J.T.’s scalp which took many days of scrubbing to come off. J.T. was immensely humiliated and shamed,” the lawsuit states. “There are hardly any African Americans in America with jet black skin and, of course, neither does J.T.,” the court document reads.

“It is commonly understood among scholars and the general public that depicting African Americans with jet black skin is a negative racial stereotype. During the Jim Crow era [of racial segregation] slaves were often depicted as happy in their slave existence and with jet black skin as a means to disguise their humanity and imply that they are unlike ‘white’ people.”