Red Clay resolves student-filed case detailing repeated harassment of a Jewish student
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and Red Clay school district came to an agreement this week, closing the investigation into a 2023 student-filed case detailing repeated harassment of a Jewish student.
The young student endured "Heil Hitler" salutes, swastikas scrawled on her desk, threatening anti-Semitic messages on paper airplanes — and exposure to fellow students who were perpetrators even after her school pledged to keep her insulated from them, according to OCR's report. The specific school was not identified.
More extensive details on the "hostile environment" and reported incidents can be found in the report. Ultimately, investigators said Red Clay took some steps but lacked in overall enforcement.
"Despite the steps taken by the district to address the harassment of the student, the evidence suggests that a hostile environment existed — and continued — for the student," the report reads. According to OCR, if a school receives notice of a hostile environment, it has a legal duty to take "reasonable steps to eliminate it."
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The national office said it's "concerned that the district’s inconsistent discipline and miscoding of incidents of harassment impeded the district from assessing whether a hostile environment existed at the school."
It called for better record keeping of specific offenses, such as this instance of students targeting a Jewish student specifically.
Red Clay agreed to take on districtwide steps toward resolution:
Widely publicize an anti-harassment statement.
Review its policies and procedures to ensure that they adequately address Title VI’s prohibition on discrimination based on race, color and national origin, including discrimination based on a student’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.
Develop or revise its procedure for documenting the school’s investigation of reports of harassment.
Annually train all administrators, faculty and staff at the School on Title VI’s prohibition of discrimination.
Annually train school staff, including school-level administrators who are directly involved in processing, investigating and/or resolving complaints.
Provide an age-appropriate informational program for students at the school to address discrimination.
Conduct an audit of all complaints received during the 2023-2024 school year, to ensure consistency of the application of and compliance with the district’s policies and procedures.
Conduct an audit of all incidents at the School coded as “Inappropriate Behavior” and “Abusive Language/Gestures” during the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years to determine if any of the incidents constituted discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, including harassment on the basis of shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics — and if so, take appropriate steps to remedy the harassment.
Conduct a climate survey with students and provide OCR a summary of the survey results and the district’s proposed corrective actions in response to the survey results for OCR approval.
“No child should be fearful in school. That this young Delaware girl was being harassed so relentlessly and without adequate support from the adults meant to keep her safe is a stain on our education system,” said Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, in a statement reacting to the Monday, Jan. 29, agreement.
“This resolution from the Department of Education is an important step forward and contains numerous action steps that all schools can and should take to create and maintain a safe learning environment."
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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Red Clay resolves civil rights complaint on Jewish student harassment
