The Philadelphia School District on Wednesday agreed to strict category_idelines on protecting
The Philadelphia School District on Wednesday agreed to strict category_idelines on protecting South Philadelphia High students from racial bias, and said it would submit to federal and state oversight on its progress.
The U.S. Justice Department in July notified officials that based on its investigation, the district had deprived Asian students at the school of equal protection “by remaining deliberately indifferent to known instances of severe and pervasive student-on-student harassment of Asian students based on their race, color, and/or national origin.”
District officials denied those findings, but chose to reach a settlement to avoid further legal action. The School Reform Commission ratified the agreement with the Justice Department and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission on Wednesday.
At the commission meeting, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said the accord shows “just how vitally important it is that everyone be treated with dignity and respect,” and recognizes “lessons learned and the tremendous steps that the students, teachers, principals, and staff have taken over the past year.”
In settling the claims filed by Asian students and their advocates, the district agreed to a range of provisions, including language on how racial harassment complaints must be taken and investigated, translation services for immigrant students and their parents, and required annual training for staff.
Student leader Wei Chen said his community “did not want money or lawsuits. What we wanted was a clear statement that what had been happening at our school was wrong in the eyes of the federal government.”
Both Chen and Helen Gym, a board member of Asian Americans United, said the pact proved that the attacks and harassment were racially motivated. District officials, they said, had tried to pin blame elsewhere.
In an interview, Thomas E. Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, commended activists “like Wei Chen and others who came forward” as “real heroes.”
South Philadelphia High exploded Dec. 3, 2009, when 30 Asians were attacked during a daylong series of assaults carried out by mostly African American students.
The attacks triggered a boycott and the formal complaints. Those complaints were folded into the consent decree, which was filed Wednesday in federal court and will be in effect until June 2013.
Both the Justice Department and the Human Relations Commission will be watching. The court order calls for monitoring by both agencies, periodic reports on the district’s progress, and an outside consultant to recommend improvements.
Perez said the agreement gave the department a road map to root out harassment in other school districts.
Instances of bullying and harassment are on the upswing, Perez said, and in the future, “our goal is not to come in after the train wreck to pick up the pieces,” but to prevent problems.
Zane David Memeger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, promised at a news conference that the Justice Department would “step in to make sure that school districts ensure a safe environment” for students facing harassment and bullying.
That the Justice Department had to intervene at all drew criticism.
Gym, of Asian Americans United, upbraided district officials.
“As appalling as the December attacks on Asian immigrant youth were, it was the egregious conduct of school and district officials in the months leading up to that day and the months since that warranted federal intervention,” Gym said at the School Reform Commission meeting. “We celebrate the lasting gains of these agreements. We hope that they are also welcomed with a measure of abiding humility and deep sorrow for the lack of action which required it.”