U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights Announces Resolution of Racial Harassment Investigation of Norwin School District in Pennsylvania

By India Education Diary Bureau Admin On Oct 6, 2024

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) today announced that Norwin School District in Pennsylvania has entered into a resolution agreement to ensure compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) when responding to allegations of harassment based on race.

OCR determined that the district violated Title VI since it was made aware of a racially hostile environment but failed to take the necessary steps to end the hostile environment and redress its effects for the school community.

Over approximately 10 months in 2021, students engaged in repeated, racially harassing conduct, including by posting to social media and in group chats race-based slurs and other racially offensive material. Despite being made aware of severe and pervasive incidents of racial harassment, the district failed to evaluate whether the incidents created a racially hostile environment for students, failed to recognize some incidents as race-based harassment, and generally failed to take action reasonably designed to redress the racially hostile environment or mitigate its effects on students and the larger community.

For example, when a student posted a video with what the district termed “racially offensive” material on their social media account, the district did not take any steps to redress the effects of the video – even though a student, who was one of the only 1.4% of students at the school who were Black, had written to the principal and other staff: “Things like this affect me often. This video just lets you see a little part of what it is like for a black person in our majority white school.”

Similarly, in response to reports of racially offensive postings in a social media exchange, and then later in a group chat, that involved for example promoting the hanging of Black people and setting Black people on fire, the district referred the matters to the local police but did not otherwise respond – at all – to the reports, including by considering and redressing their effects on district students’ access to education. The district ignored its obligation under Title VI to consider whether the posts – even if made on private social media accounts or off campus – created a racially hostile environment for students, and if so, whether it necessitated action by the district to redress the hostile environment.

Following these repeated and escalating incidents of race harassment, the district again failed to take action reasonably designed to redress the racially hostile environment or mitigate its effects in October 2021 when the district high school hosted theme days during homecoming week. The theme for Oct. 11 was called “’Merica Monday” and two students, who had participated in prior racially harassing incidents the district had declined to address as harassment, wore Confederate flag attire to the district high school. The district also received notice that a photo of the students wearing the Confederate flag attire circulated on social media with a caption titled “kool kids klub” to refer to the Ku Klux Klan.

Despite the clear evidence of a severe and pervasive racially hostile environment presented to the district in the form of voluminous student, former student, parent, teacher and community emails, none of the district administrators interviewed by OCR considered the Oct. 11 incident to be racial harassment or as contributing to a racially hostile environment. Worse, the then-superintendent minimized the severity of the conduct in an email to school board members, and in a press release that same evening. Because the district failed to recognize the existence of a racially hostile environment, it once again failed to take any reasonable steps to eliminate the hostile environment and redress its effects on the school community. In fact, district documents show one of the Confederate flag wearing students shortly thereafter drew a Confederate flag on his arm, visible at school, within weeks of the ‘Merica Monday incident, reflecting the insufficiency of the district response.

The resolution agreement commits the district to take steps to ensure nondiscrimination based on race in all of its education programs and activities, including:

Review the incidents that occurred at the middle and high school during the 2021-2022 school year to determine what steps are necessary to ensure that the hostile environment does not persist, and what steps must be taken to redress the hostile environment for students, including remedial services for any student impacted by the hostile environment.
Provide all middle and high school administrators, faculty, and staff with Title VI training and survey staff following the training to assess the effectiveness of the training.
Provide a mandatory age-appropriate orientation session for all middle and high school students on the district’s policies and procedures prohibiting race discrimination and harassment.
Conduct a climate survey at the middle and high school, and provide OCR with a report, for OCR approval, describing any actions that the district will take in response to the survey results.
Post a notice on its website and in the 2024-2025 back-to-school communications regarding how to file a complaint, and conduct a prompt investigation of any complaints filed.
Conduct an audit of all complaints of racial harassment at the middle and high school during the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024 school years to ensure that the district is responding to incidents of racial harassment consistent with the requirements of Title VI. And,
Retain or designate a consultant with expertise on the issue of harassment of students on the basis of race, color, and national origin to work with the middle and high school to assist in the development and delivery of training and a climate survey.

“The Norwin School District has now committed to taking steps essential to effectively addressing the racially hostile environment in its schools and ensuring that students are able to access their education without being subject to race-based harassment,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. “OCR looks forward to the change to come in this district to ensure its students can learn free from discrimination as federal law guarantees.”