A suburban school district says it’ll fight a lawsuit aimed at overturning the expulsion of a student. Proviso Township High Schools says kicking him out was necessary for the safety of other students.

Proviso East High School in west suburban Maywood claims Coris Ashford, 17, took part in a hallway fight that injured a student last May. The district says it caught the fight on videotape. Officials expelled Ashford and two other students until next August.

Ashford’s mother, Erica Edmond, says the punishment is not justifiable. “They didn’t show me the videotape,” she says. “They didn’t show me any type of proof that my son did anything.”

In a statement Thursday afternoon, the district says it gave each student due process and will defend itself “to the fullest extent.”

In July, a Cook County judge threw out a Proviso East expulsion that involved an unrelated incident last year.

In September, WBEZ found that the school district has been suspending or expelling one in three of its students each year.