AUBURN – A Maine Human Rights Commission investigator has found that an Auburn school bus driver discriminated against a Somali boy when he refused to let him on the bus.

The driver stereotyped and discriminated against the boy because of his race, color and national origin, according to the investigator’s report. The full commission is expected to rule on the case Sept. 19.

The incident occurred in October 2003 when the driver was picking up pupils at Auburn Middle School and thought the 13-year-old student was lying when he said he lived on a particular street, not on Valerie Street where some other Somali families lived.

The school system had been having problems with students taking the wrong buses, and the driver had been told to direct Valerie Circle students to a different bus, according to the report.

Even after another student who is not Somali assured the driver that the boy was his neighbor and lived on the bus route, he still refused to allow him on the bus.

Instead, he told the student, “Somalis do not take this bus,” the report said.

After the incident, the school system suspended the driver for one day without pay and made him attend a workshop led by the director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. The bus driver then resigned.

The boy’s father, Abdiaziz Ali, brought the case to the Maine Human Rights Commission last year.

Auburn schools Superintendent Barbara Eretzian said the school system abhors any action that degrades or humiliates anyone, but she maintained the school system is not liable for the driver’s “isolated act.”