Justice Department reaches settlement with Kentucky school district over racial harassment of students

By Meron Moges-Gerbi, CNN

(CNN) — The Department of Justice announced Monday it reached an agreement with Madison County Schools in Kentucky to settle a federal investigation “into complaints of serious and widespread racial harassment of Black and multi-racial students.”

Authorities launched an investigation into the district, located just south of Lexington, in October 2021, and found that racial slurs and derogatory racial comments were directed at students of color by their peers, the Justice Department said in a news release. The investigation was conducted under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which allows the federal government to address violations of equal rights protections in public schools.

The harassment was “at times reinforced by use of Confederate flags and imagery,” the department said, adding the school district did not “consistently or reasonably” address it.

“No student should be subject to racial harassment, including racist taunts with the Confederate flag that are clearly intended to surface some of the harshest and most brutal periods of our country’s history,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who leads the department’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “Racial harassment inflicts grievous harm on young people and violates the Constitution’s most basic promise of equal protection.”

Madison County Schools said it will work with the Justice Department to address harassment in schools and plans to implement a series of policy changes based on the agreement.

“Madison County Schools has fully cooperated with the investigation conducted by the United States Department of Justice regarding race-based harassment in our schools. The district will continue working closely with the US Department of Justice to implement policy and procedure changes outlined in the agreement, particularly those that pertain to the tracking and analyzing of data pertaining to racially motivated incidents in the district,” the district said in a statement to CNN.

The school district agreed to hire one or more consultants to comply with the agreement as well as hire three people to investigate and resolve complaints of racial harassment or other racial discrimination, according to the settlement agreement.

In addition, the school district agreed to train its staff on how to identify and handle incidents of racial harassment among students. It also agreed to track complaints and efforts taken in response, and submit an annual report to federal officials on the effectiveness of its anti-harassment and nondiscrimination efforts, according to the settlement.

The settlement also requires the district to implement focus groups, surveys, and educational events as a way to prevent race discrimination.

Carlton S. Shier IV, US attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, said the investigation’s principles and the settlement are “straightforward.”

“All young people are entitled to seek their educational opportunities without facing racial harassment and abuse, and schools simply must adequately protect those entrusted to their care and instruction from that offensive, harmful behavior,” Shier said. “With this settlement, Madison County Schools are now taking an important step consistent with those basic principles.”

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