Following an investigation into claims of racial harassment towards Black and Asian students, a school district in Utah has settled with the government to resolve shocking racist behaviors and practices.

According to the Justice Department, the Davis School District in Utah routinely allowed and even perpetrated the mistreatment of its Black and Asian student populations which made up about 1% of the roughly 73,000 students enrolled in the school district. The treatment was a direct violation of the students’ equal protection rights.

The investigation began in July 2019 and was opened under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to investigators, racial harassment was pervasive and continued for years with some students enduring the harassment every year during their K-12 education.

The federal investigation into the allegations focused on incidents that took place between 2015 and 2020. During this time, investigators found that Black students were routinely subject to racial harassment which included racial slurs including the “N-word” and other derogatory racial comments. According to the report, officials explained that they “learned of incidents in which white students referred to Black students as dirty, asked why they did not wash their skin, and commented that their skin looked like feces.” Documents kept by the school district show there were at least 212 documented instances in which students were called the “N-word” across 27 schools.

Asian students were also subject to racial epithets. The report explains that white students would harass their Asian-American students, calling them “yellow” and describing them as “squinty.” Other times, Asian students were told by their peers to “Go back to China.”

The students who were harassed told investigators that they would often report the harassment to their teachers or school officials, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. The Justice department details, “Many Black students said the harassment was so pervasive and happened so often in front of adults that they concluded school employees condoned the behavior and believed reporting it further would be futile.”

Investigators even uncover instances in which minority students were singled out by teachers, administrators, and other school staff and treated unfairly. The report explains that Black students would often face harsher consequences than their white peers for the same offense. “In several cases, Black students were excluded from class through in- or out-of-school suspensions whereas their white peers received a conference,” the report explains.

School officials admitted that they mistreated minority students and that despite having data that showed discipline disparities, the district officials admitted that they did not take any steps to properly train school staff.

U.S. Acting attorney Andrea Martinez for the District of Utah shared of the settlement, “The Justice Department thanks the many parents and students who came forward and shared their experiences and the Davis School District for its cooperation with our investigation.” Martinez adds, “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.”

As part of the settlement, the school district has agreed to retain a consultant to direct the school district in its anti-discrimination policies. According to the Justice Department, the consultant will help the school district in the following manner:

• 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 on how to report harassment and discrimination;
• Create a centralized, electronic reporting system to track and manage complaints and Davis’s 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; and
• Develop a districtwide procedure to assess requests for student groups and treat such requests fairly.