DOJ Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against MN School District; Settlement Proposal With DOJ

Source: Metro Weekly

Following an investigation that began in November 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice today filed a federal lawsuit against the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the Minnesota school district that has been the subject of significant public criticism for its treatment of LGBT students, alleging that the district violated students' constitutional rights, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Education Amendments of 1972.

In the DOJ complaint, obtained by Metro Weekly, DOJ lays out the findings of its investigation, which was conducted with the Department of Education and has led to a proposed settlement of the lawsuit and two ongoing lawsuits brought by students in the district. In October 2010, the Department of Education sent a letter to schools detailing their obligations under federal law to protect LGBT students from sexual harassment and gender-based harassment resulting from sex stereotypes.

Noting specific examples of discriminatory treatment faced by 10 students in the district, DOJ's investigation, according to today's filing, concluded, "The school and District officials with authority to address the sex-based harassment knew or should have known about the harassment [the students] experienced.

"Often, District personnel ignored these sex-based harassment allegations," DOJ lawyers wrote in the complaint, which was signed by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, the head of DOJ's Civil Rights Division. "In those instances when the District did respond to reports of sex-based harassment, the District's response improperly placed the burden of stopping the harassment on the student being harassed. ... The District knew its responses to sex-based harassment were inadequate because the harassment continued and in certain instances escalated.

Read more: http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/03/doj-files-civil-rights-lawsuit.html