U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights Resolves Sexual Harassment Compliance Review of Memphis-Shelby County School District in Tennessee

U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights Resolves Sexual Harassment Compliance Review of Memphis-Shelby County School District in Tennessee

August 30, 2024

Contact: (202) 401-1576, [email protected]

Today the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved a compliance review of the Memphis-Shelby County School District with a resolution agreement to address the district's handling of sexual assault cases, including those involving student and staff misconduct. Memphis-Shelby County is the largest school district in Tennessee.

District documents reflect reports that teachers or substitute teachers sexually assaulted students in seven incidents across three school years at all school levels in the district: elementary, middle, and high school. District documents reflect 53 more cases of reported staff-to-student sexual harassment, not including sexual assault, as well as a total of 88 cases of student-to-student sexual harassment during the same time period.

These same documents as well as witness interviews reflect clear district violations of Title IX in addition to raising serious concerns regarding the efficacy of the district response in satisfaction of Title IX. For example, district documentation regarding an elementary school teacher who was ultimately convicted of soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor and who was reported to have encouraged boys and girls to touch each other inappropriately during class, in addition to other alleged misconduct, does not reflect any involvement of the Title IX coordinator in investigating the teacher's conduct, any supports provided by the district to affected students to ensure their equal access to education, or any notice to the parties regarding any district determination under Title IX.

Based on these among other records, district documents suggest the district did not respond either promptly or equitably to complaints of sexual harassment, including assault, of students. In addition, OCR determined that the district violated Title IX by:

• Not having a designated Title IX coordinator for substantial portions of OCR's compliance review period.
• Not coordinating its response to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, through its Title IX coordinator as required during the time that a Title IX coordinator was designated.
• Not involving the Title IX coordinator in the majority of sexual harassment files reviewed for this investigation, including not involving a Title IX coordinator in any of the staff involved incidents.
• Not maintaining a nondiscrimination statement and harassment policies that comply with Title IX.
• Not fulfilling the Title IX obligation to maintain records sufficient for the district or for OCR to make compliance determinations, including with respect to inconsistent reporting to OCR for the Civil Rights Data Collection and for this compliance review.

The resolution agreement commits the district to take the following steps to resolve this investigation:

• Adopt and publish a compliant notice of nondiscrimination.
• Designate, train, and publicize the contact information for, its Title IX coordinator(s).
• Revise all policies that describe the district's response to sexual harassment to ensure the policies are compliant with the requirements of Title IX and consistent with each other.
• Review all complaints of student and staff involved sexual assault during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years to ensure each complaint was resolved in compliance with Title IX, and if not, offer appropriate remedies.
• Conduct training on the Title IX process and its revised grievance procedures for district staff.
• Develop or revise its procedure for documenting or tracking complaints of sexual assault, including the steps taken as part of the district's investigation into such complaints.
• Conduct a survey of students and parents to determine if the district needs to take additional steps to address sexual harassment in its schools, with OCR approval for any next steps.
• Develop a plan to ensure timely submission of complete and accurate data to the CRDC in the future and ensure that all employees who are responsible for reporting data to the CRDC receive instructions regarding how to report data to the CRDC in accordance with the plan.

"Students in the Memphis-Shelby County School District deserve the safety and freedom from discrimination that Congress promised them in Title IX, and the District now commits to fulfill its Title IX obligations to these students" said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. "The Office for Civil Rights will monitor the school district in the coming years to be sure it complies with Title IX."

The letter to Memphis-Shelby County School District is available here and the resolution agreement is available here.

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