The U.S. Justice Department on Monday, June 10, announced a settlement agreement with a Tennessee school district following an investigation into race-based harassment and discrimination against Black students.
The Justice Department's investigation into Hawkins County Schools under Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 began in March 2023, after Erika Qualls, the mother of a district student, filed a lawsuit alleging race-based bullying.
The DOJ reviewed 16 incidents that took place between September 2021 and May 2022, including "a mock 'slave auction' to sell Black students to their white counterparts, white students’ repeated and open use of the N-word and a 'monkey of the month' campaign to ridicule Black students."
In one of the incidents, a student slapped a Black student in addition to using slurs. Other incidents involved the widespread verbal use of slurs, graffiti of slurs and swastikas, a "KKK drawing," and race-based mockery related to picking cotton.
“No student should endure mock slave auctions or racial slurs meant to invoke a shameful period in our country’s history when Black people were treated as subhuman," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “Racial harassment undermines a student's ability to feel safe, eliminates any hope for fostering a supportive educational environment and violates the Constitution’s most basic promise of equal protection. The Justice Department remains committed to protecting the civil rights of all students and will ensure that Hawkins County Schools takes all actions necessary to end racial discrimination in its schools.”
The Justice Department said that although the school district "took steps to acknowledge some of the harassment, their response was not sufficient to protect the Constitutional rights of Black students."
Under the agreement, Hawkins County Schools will be required to implement several reforms, including creating a new electronic reporting portal to track and manage complaints and the district's responses to them, and updating racial harassment and school discipline policies to track and respond to complaints of race-based harassment.
Other reforms include hiring a compliance officer to oversee the resolution of complaints; training staff how to identify, investigate and respond to complaints of racial harassment and discriminatory discipline practices; informing students and parents of how to report harassment and discrimination; and analyzing discipline data and amending policies to ensure non-discriminatory enforcement of discipline policies.
“To protect our children and cultivate a successful learning environment, our schools must take complaints of racial harassment and discrimination with the utmost seriousness and address them promptly and effectively,” said U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III for the Eastern District of Tennessee. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office commends the Hawkins County Board of Education for cooperating in the department’s investigation and working to improve its response to complaints of racial harassment and discrimination by reaching a resolution that enhances protections for both students’ constitutional rights and their dignity.”
—TMX contributed to this report.
