A school district in Tennessee has agreed to implement reforms to its practices after a federal investigation found evidence of racist harassment, which included a Black student called racial slurs and subjected to a mock slave auction where he was “sold” to his white peers.
In a settlement with the Hawkins county school district in eastern Tennessee, the US Department of Justice said it had secured significant changes to school policies after it found the district was “deliberately indifferent to known race-based harassment in its schools, violating the equal protection rights of Black students”.
The justice department’s investigation, launched last year, found that white students repeatedly used the N-word and held a “monkey of the month” campaign to ridicule Black students. One Black student, known as KR, suffered repeated abuse, including an incident in which he walked into a bathroom to find a white student holding a staged slave auction in which he was “sold” to the highest bidder.
Other incidents included students passing around a drawing of Ku Klux Klansmen and adding a Black student to a group chat that contained racist slurs. According to the mother of a Black student, of which there are fewer than five among 400 students at the school, the district did not act on complaints about the students’ behaviour.
“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,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil rights division.
Clarke said that the justice department would ensure that Hawkins county takes steps to end racial discrimination at its schools.
Under the settlement, the school district will have to undertake eight different reforms, including hiring new staff to handle complaints of racism, teacher training and processes to inform students and parents on how to report racist harassment.
“Our school system is – and always has been – dedicated to serving and protecting all students, regardless of race,” said Matt Hixson, director of schools at Hawkins county, AP reports.
“Therefore, we entered into the agreement with DoJ to continue pursuing those same goals, and we look forward to working with the department regarding the same in the future.”
