08/30/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 08/30/2024 10:35
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:
The resolution agreement commits the district to take the following steps to resolve this investigation:
"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.