DOJ, state reach settlement in Davis School District racial harassment case

“The investigation revealed persistent failures to respond to reports of race-based harassment of Black and Asian-American students by district staff and other students,” the DOJ statement says. “The department’s review, which focused on 2015-2020, found hundreds of documented uses of the N-word, among other racial epithets, derogatory racial comments, and physical assaults targeting district students at dozens of schools.”

Peers “taunted Black students by making monkey noises at them, touching and pulling their hair without permission, repeatedly referencing slavery and lynching, and telling Black students ‘go pick cotton’ and ‘you are my slave,'” a summary of the case says. “Harassment related to slavery increased when schools taught the subject, which some Black students felt was not taught in a respectful or considerate manner. White and other non-Black students demanded that Black students give them an ‘N-Word Pass,’ which non-Black students claimed gave them permission to use the ‘N-word’ with impunity, including to and around Black students. If Black students resisted these demands, they were sometimes threatened or physically assaulted.”

Some students in middle school or high school told DOJ investigators they had experienced racial harassment since kindergarten, the summary says.

“The department concluded that for years, Davis’s ineffective response left students vulnerable to continued harassment and that students believed the district condoned the behavior. The department also found that Davis disciplined Black students more harshly than their white peers for similar behavior and that Davis denied Black students the ability to form student groups while supporting similar requests by other students.”

Black and Asian-American students are each roughly 1 percent of the approximately 73,000 students enrolled in the district, the DOJ statement says.

“Pervasive racial harassment and other forms of racial discrimination in public schools violate the Constitution’s most basic promise of equal protection,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division said in the prepared statement.

“This agreement will help generate the institutional change necessary to keep Black and Asian-American students safe. We look forward to Davis demonstrating to its students and school community that it will no longer tolerate racial discrimination in its schools.”

Andrea Martinez, acting United States Attorney for the District of Utah, thanked Davis School District parents and students for their cooperation in the investigation.

“As the federal partners who work and live in this community, we are hopeful that this agreement is the start of a new chapter in which Black and Asian-American students will attend Davis schools without fear,” she said.

Under the agreement, Davis School District will retain a consultant to review and revise anti-discrimination policies and procedures and support the district as it undertakes significant institutional reforms. Among other steps, Davis will:

• Create a new department to handle complaints of race discrimination
• Train staff on how to identify, investigate, and respond to complaints of racial harassment and discriminatory discipline practices
• Inform students and parents of how to report harassment and discrimination
• Create a centralized, electronic reporting system to track and manage complaints and Davis’ response to complaints
• Implement student, staff, and parent training and education on identifying and preventing race discrimination, including discriminatory harassment
• Analyze and review discipline data and amend policies to ensure non-discriminatory enforcement of discipline policies
• Develop a districtwide procedure to assess requests for student groups and treat such requests fairly

Protecting the constitutional rights of public school students is a top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the DOJ statement says.

Additional information about the Civil Rights Division is available on its website at www.justice.gov/crt, and additional information about the work of the Educational Opportunities Section is available on this link.

Members of the public may report possible civil rights violations at this link. View the summary of the agreement here.

Davis School District statement

The Davis School District provided the following statement to Gephardt Daily:

“The Board of Education of the Davis School District has entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S.