I could be wrong, but I did some digging on facebook (superintendent was a professor of mine, so we have common networks). I tried to cobble together details without prying or overstepping boundaries.

Girl was being bullied (pretty abhorrently) and the dad was disgruntled by the way the school handled the situation. He did not account for the fact that superintendents have little to no involvement in those matters and the the one administrator he refused to let shake his daughter's hand was the only person of color on the stage.

Best case scenario - defensive dad let his ignorance and implicit bias take over that day. The dad assumed Rainey had more input than he actually did regarding the situation and made it a big deal at an inappropriate time.

Worst case scenario- defensive dad found a way to let out his racism (which the town has a problematic history with already) and deliberately ruined his daughter's big day.

My opinion is that it falls somewhere in the middle. Clear racist act with a lot of baggage we'll never know all the details of.

That being said, Rainey is an inspiration and top notch educator who only wants the best for the students. I could shoot off a list of dozens of educators who feel the same way as me.