The U.S. Department of Education has found substantiated allegations of civil rights violations in the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas. The department is now seeking to negotiate with the district over complaints from four students who reported experiencing racist and anti-LGBTQ discrimination during their time at the school.
The students, who have since graduated or left the district, reported a series of racist and homophobic slurs and comments. One student claimed to have faced retaliation after reporting racial harassment, while another contemplated suicide due to persistent mockery of his sexual orientation. The student's family alleges that the district failed to address the bullying.
The Education Department's civil rights enforcement arm has now contacted the Carroll district officials to begin negotiating a resolution agreement in the four complaints. This step is only taken after the agency has found evidence of civil rights violations, according to Katrina Feldkamp, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The Southlake school system, which drew national attention in 2021 after conservative parents rejected a comprehensive plan to prevent discrimination, now has 90 days to reach an agreement with the Education Department on measures to address the issues identified in the student complaints.
The local debate over addressing racism in Carroll schools has become a national symbol of the ongoing battles over race, gender, and sexuality. The controversy began in 2018 after a video of white high school students chanting racial slurs went viral, prompting numerous Carroll parents and students to share their own experiences of discrimination.
In response to the outcry, the school board appointed a committee to devise strategies to tackle the problem. The resulting Cultural Competence Action Plan proposed mandatory diversity training for teachers and students and changes to the student handbook to explicitly prohibit harassment based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. However, the plan faced backlash from conservative parents and activists who formed a political action committee to defeat the diversity plan.
The Education Department's findings could potentially lead to a clash between local voters who opposed the diversity plan and federal officials tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws. If the district fails to reach a voluntary agreement with the Office for Civil Rights on how to address discrimination, the agency could impose changes that Carroll would have to comply with or risk losing federal funding or inviting an investigation by the Department of Justice.
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