Judge rules that Cedarburg School District must reinvestigate claims of racial harassment

An Ozaukee County circuit judge has upheld part of the state Department of Public Instruction's ruling that the Cedarburg School District did not properly investigate a parent's claim that her biracial son was racially harassed.

Judge Steven Cain also ruled that one of the incidents discussed in parent Jessica Mchomvu's original complaint did not constitute a racially hostile environment, based on the district's harassment policy.

Cain's decision came in an oral ruling April 29. He ordered that the district conduct another investigation into specific allegations of Confederate flags being on vehicles in Cedarburg High School's parking lot and the use of a racial slur in the school's hallways.

"I'm really pleased with this ruling," said Elisabeth Lambert, an attorney with the ACLU who represented Mchomvu. "I think the core issue in this case is a district's reasonable duty to do a reasonable investigation when it learns about potential racial harassment in its schools.

"I think the court was very clear that what Cedarburg had done was not adequate to get the facts that it actually needed to understand what students are experiencing."

"This is really good. The district is going to have to go back and instead of just a pro forma fact-checking investigation that's not really designed to develop facts, they're actually going to have to talk to people with on-the-ground information," Lambert said in an April 29 phone interview. "They're going to have to talk to teachers. They're going to have to look at what's being displayed in their parking lots, and they're going to have to come to grips with the facts."

Mchomvu was also pleased by the ruling.

"It's a good thing. The district has to re-investigate, which I'm going to look at as a win. I'm upset that my kid has to go through the whole process all over again, but his social anxiety has gotten way better, so he is totally willing to talk to them this time, which is good," Mchomvu said in an April 29 phone interview.

Jennifer Williams, the attorney representing the Cedarburg School District, did not respond to phone and email requests for an interview.

The Cedarburg School District released a statement after the ruling on its website and via email to a reporter that said the court determined the DPI had erred in finding the district did not follow its own anti-harassment policies when responding to certain harassment complaints and that the district "adequately investigated certain complaints of harassment."

"While the Court determined that there are additional steps the District can take to investigate other of the parent’s allegations, the Court held that there was no basis for the DPI to have issued the District a corrective order. The District takes complaints of harassment seriously, and it is pleased that today’s Court decision rejected the DPI’s overreaching requirement that the District take extraordinary and burdensome measures, not justified by policy or law, to investigate even the vaguest allegations of harassment. Today’s decision validates the District’s efforts to create a safe and welcoming learning environment for all students," the district said in its statement.

The ACLU of Wisconsin said in a news release May 2 that the district's email to parents about the ruling was misleading.

"In actuality, the court ruled that the District had conducted an inadequate investigation into key allegations of the complaint and ordered a new investigation," the organization said in its release.

School district's appeal of DPI decision

Cain's ruling came after a months-long effort by the Cedarburg School District to appeal a July 2021 DPI decision.

The DPI's decision said the school district's investigation into a racial harassment complaint from Mchomvu was deficient. It also asked the district to submit a corrective action plan within 30 days to specify actions it will take to comply with its own discrimination policies and procedures, as well as to specify steps to conduct a complete factual investigation of the parent's claims.

The district appealed the DPI's decision in August 2021 to the Ozaukee County Circuit Court.

Racial harassment complaint

The case started when Mchomvu filed a racial harassment complaint with the school district in October 2020.

In her complaint, Mchomvu said her son had overheard a student at Cedarburg High School praising Kyle Rittenhouse and saying he would run over Black Lives Matter protesters.

She also said her son frequently heard the n-word at Cedarburg High school and at school-sponsored sporting events.

Mchomvu also said students displayed Confederate flags on their vehicles in the school's parking lot and that students wore Trump 2020, MAGA and Thin Blue Line apparel during the school day, which she said created a racially hostile environment.

Independent investigation and subsequent rulings

The district hired an independent investigator, who concluded in December 2020 that there was no evidence of racial harassment or bullying, and that the district did not violate board policy, state or federal law. The superintendent adopted the findings Jan. 11, 2021.

The ACLU filed an appeal with the DPI on Jan. 25, 2021, which led to the DPI's ruling in July 2021.

In his April 29 ruling, Cain said there was no evidence the n-word had been used at school-sponsored sporting events.

But he also said the district didn't do enough to investigate potential comments in hallways by failing to speak with staff or to consult discipline records to see whether such comments had been addressed in the past.

"The court is going to uphold DPI's determination there. The substantial evidence in the record does support that determination," said Cain, of the district's efforts to investigate comments in school hallways.

Cain also upheld the DPI's decision about the district's investigation into the display of Confederate flags on vehicles in the school's parking lot being unreasonable.

"The record is clear that despite the assistant principal not being aware of that, that the investigator or anyone else associated with the district didn't take any steps to do what would be a simple investigation," said Cain.

"The parking lot is easily defined. It's not particularly big and probably could be walked in an hour and the investigator failed to do that," he added.

In addressing Mchomvu's claim that there was a racially hostile environment at Cedarburg High School because of an overheard comment about running over BLM protestors, Cain said the DPI's decision was not supported because the harassment was not directed individually toward Mchomvu's son.

He also said the school's assistant principal addressed the issue appropriately.

"If the court were to adopt that manner in evaluating the complaints not specifically directed at one particular person ... that would open up a floodgate of harassment complaints if anyone were to overhear something. It frankly would result in an unworkable and unreasonable outcome," Cain said.

A status conference for determining how the new investigation will be conducted is scheduled for May 6.

Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Judge: Cedarburg Schools must reinvestigate racial harassment claims