NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A college district in jap Tennessee has agreed to implement adjustments after a federal investigation discovered a number of incidents of race-based harassment, together with college students holding a mock “slave public sale” to promote Black college students to their white classmates.
The Division of Justice introduced the settlement Monday after initially alerting the varsity district in 2023 that it will launch an investigation. It stated college officers had been “intentionally detached to recognized race-based harassment in its colleges, violating the equal safety rights of Black college students,” in accordance with a information launch.
The investigation was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a mom of a pupil, recognized solely as “Ok.R.”, who reportedly confronted the brunt of the harassment. That go well with was settled earlier this yr.
Each the lawsuit and DOJ discovered that Ok.R. skilled 12 racial harassment incidents throughout the 2021-22 college yr. They typically concerned “public humiliation within the frequent areas of his college,” akin to being handed a drawing of a Klansman driving in the direction of a monkey and strolling into a rest room to discover a white pupil holding a mock slave public sale by which Ok.R. was “offered” to the best bidder.
“No pupil ought to endure mock slave auctions or racial slurs meant to invoke a shameful interval in our nation’s historical past when Black individuals have been handled as subhuman,” Assistant Lawyer Common Kristen Clarke of the Justice Division’s Civil Rights Division stated in a press release.
Whereas the DOJ said Monday that the varsity district cooperated with the investigation, the settlement report additionally states that the varsity district “disagrees with the division’s findings and conclusions associated to allegations of race-based harassment and/or violence, and disagrees that it or its brokers acted with deliberate indifference.”
“Our college system is — and all the time has been — devoted to serving and defending all college students, no matter race,” stated Hawkins County Director of Faculties Matt Hixson. “Subsequently, we entered into the settlement with DOJ to proceed pursuing those self same objectives, and we sit up for working with the Division relating to the identical sooner or later.”
In accordance with the DOJ settlement, the varsity has agreed to eight adjustments that can be applied over the following few years, akin to hiring a compliance officer to supervise racial discrimination and harassment complaints. Different reforms embody making a reporting portal to trace complaints; updating its racial harassment and faculty self-discipline polices; coaching employees on figuring out and responding to racial harassment and discrimination; and informing college students and fogeys on how you can report harassment and discrimination.
