Ruling Widens School Liability for Racial Slurs

School districts may be held liable if they fail to respond to complaints of racial slurs by one student against another, a federal appeals court ruled Monday--the first such decision regarding how broad a duty officials have to prevent racial harassment in schools.

In the same case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Arizona woman’s claim that she should be able to sue her school district because it required her daughter to read Mark Twain’s novel “Huckleberry Finn” and William Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily.”

The 9th Circuit rules on federal law in California and eight other Western states.

Federal courts have issued a number of rulings in recent years regarding sexual harassment in schools. Harassment involving race, however, is governed by a separate federal law, and the potential for lawsuits against school districts has been unclear.

In the current case, Kathy Monteiro, a Phoenix teacher, sued the nearby Tempe, Ariz., school district, saying that officials had failed to respond to her complaints of “egregious public racial harassment” of her daughter Raquel Panton, who is black.

Monteiro alleged that white students at Tempe Union High School called her daughter and other African American students “nigger” and emblazoned that racial epithet on a bench normally used by black students and on school walls.

She also contended that the already hostile racial environment at the school was exacerbated by the use of “Huckleberry Finn,” which contains the epithet 215 times, and the Faulkner short story “A Rose for Emily,” which uses the word several times.

A federal district judge in Arizona had dismissed the suit, ruling that Monteiro would have to prove that district officials had acted with discriminatory intent. Ignoring complaints about discriminatory acts by students would not be enough to make a school liable, he ruled.

The appeals court disagreed. When a school district “is ‘deliberately indifferent’ to its students’ right to a learning environment free of racial hostility and discrimination, it is liable for damages” under federal civil rights law, the appeals court panel held in a 3-0 decision.

“Once on notice of the problem, a school district ‘has a legal duty to take reasonable steps to eliminate’ a racially hostile environment,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the court.

“A school where this sort of conduct occurs unchecked,” Reinhardt wrote, referring to the racial slurs and graffiti that Monteiro had complained of, “is utterly failing in its mandate to provide a nondiscriminatory educational environment.”

He was joined by Judges Dorothy W. Nelson and Robert Boochever. All three were appointed by President Jimmy Carter and are among the more liberal members of the 28-judge appellate court.

It remains unclear how much additional legal jeopardy the court’s ruling may create for school districts. Both the California and national school board associations declined to comment on the ruling.

While opening the door for suits against schools, the court declined to step into the controversy over texts. “It is simply not the role of courts to serve as literary censors or to make judgments as to whether reading particular books does students more harm than good,” the judges said. “Books can hurt and . . . words can hurt--particularly racist epithets,” but banning a book is not a proper solution, the judges said.

Although Ernest Hemingway once said that “all modern American literature comes from . . . ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ ” the book has been controversial since it was published in 1885. Twain’s pre-Civil War tale of the friendship between a runaway black slave and a white teenage boy who helps him escape was immediately banned in Concord, Mass., as “trash and suitable only for the slums.”

As time has gone on, critics have praised the book as a satirical indictment of racism in 19th century America. However, in recent years, parents throughout the United States, particularly African Americans, have attempted to persuade school officials to remove the book from classes or libraries on the grounds that it is demeaning to them and has a negative effect on the self-esteem of young blacks.

Lawyer Cites Book’s Impact

According to the American Library Assn., “Huckleberry Finn” is the most frequently banned book in the United States. The controversy has been so widespread that a Texas professor has given seminars on how to teach the book, with a special focus on its historical context and use of language.

Monteiro’s lawyer, Stephen G. Montoya, alleged that his client’s daughter and a black male student--the only two African Americans in the freshman honors English class of 25--suffered psychological injuries and lost educational opportunities because they were required to read Twain’s book and Faulkner’s 1924 story about life in Mississippi.

The judges acknowledged that “books--and words--are powerful tools that can convey extremely injurious messages.” But, they concluded, for a court to ban the book would violate the 1st Amendment rights of other students.

A contrary ruling might make “an extremely wide--if not unlimited--range of literary products” grounds for lawsuits, the judges wrote.

“White plaintiffs could seek to remove books by Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and other prominent black authors on the ground that they portray Caucasians in a derogatory fashion; Jews might try to impose civil liability for the teaching of Shakespeare and of more modern English poets where writings exhibit a similar anti-Semitic strain. Female students could attempt to make a case for damages for the assignment of the works of Tennessee Williams, Hemingway or Freud, and male students for the writings of Andrea Dworkin or Margaret Atwood.”

Reinhardt suggested that students may benefit from reading books that offend. “A necessary component of any education is learning to think critically about offensive ideas--without that ability one can do little to respond to them,” he wrote, noting that it also is “important for young people . . . to discover both the good and the bad in our history.”

Since the litigation began, the school district has changed its curriculum so that Twain’s novel is no longer required until 11th-grade literature classes, in which students are given the option of substituting Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel “The Red Badge of Courage,” said the school’s principal, Michael Gemma.

Montoya maintained that his client never wanted the book banned. Rather, she simply wanted her daughter to have the option to read another book.

“What we don’t want is that African American children can be forced to read literature that portrays their class in a derogatory, demeaning fashion,” Montoya said.