Four students in the Douglas County School District alleged in a new federal lawsuit they were targets of racist bullying at Castle Rock Middle School and Douglas County High School, and the district and its school board didn’t take action to stop it.
The students’ parents filed the case on behalf in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit identified the children only by their initials because they are minors.
The lawsuit, which involves three students who were students at Castle Rock Middle School and one who attended Douglas County High School, alleged that "historically, Black students in the DCSD reported suffering from a racially hostile learning environment."
"Such reports included that racial slurs regularly appeared scrawled on restroom stalls, cavalier use of the N-word by White classmates, and feelings of isolation," the lawsuit claimed.
A district’s spokesperson pointed The Denver Gazette to a statement made by Superintendent Erin Kane during a May 23 board meeting directed to one of the families: “Racism in any form is unacceptable at DCSD and a direct policy violation.”
The students who brought the lawsuit claimed they were called the n-word and three of the children were called “monkeys” and “cotton pickers” by other students at Castle Rock Middle School. The parent of one student, N.G., said her social studies teacher assigned her — the only Black student in her class — to argue for the “pros” of Jim Crow laws during a class debate and told her she would receive a failing grade if she did not participate, according to the complaint.
Her parents pulled her out of the high school after a month, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also claimed more than 100 students participated in a group chat on Snapchat, where they used the n-word, talked about killing Black people and posted racist memes. Some Snapchat pictures of those memes were included in the lawsuit, which also stated the group no longer exists on Snapchat.
“There should have been a moment where everyone revisited the culture that they're establishing in that school district and in that community . and where they did wrong,” said Iris Halpern, an attorney with the civil rights firm Rathod Mohamedbhai, which represents the families. “There should be some introspection, but that just hasn't happened.”
The federal lawsuit, filed Aug. 2, named the school district, its board and Castle Rock Middle School Principal John Veit as defendants.
Veit did not respond to an email request for comment. Board members also did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit claimed the school district deprived the students, who are Black or biracial, of equal access to education under the Civil Rights Act’s Title VI. It also accused the school’s principal of failing to stop the harassment that deprived the students of their rights, and accused each defendant of violating the students’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
The case said Veit, as Castle Rock’s Middle School principal, did not do enough to address the alleged bullying.
Among the accusations, the lawsuit said he did not respond directly to one of the students, J.G., who sent an email to the district, laying out his concerns about what he described as racist treatment by students and teachers. The lawsuit said Veit wrote in an email to the school’s communications officer he “(had) a feeling it will be a long project for us” in reference to addressing what the case calls a “hostile” environment for students of color after the officer forwarded the student’s email to Veit.
The complaint said the parents of the three children in middle school at the time were never informed of the harassment their children reported. This was despite Veit facilitating a conversation between one boy and a female student who repeatedly called him a “monkey boy," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also accused four new candidates for the Board of Education in 2021 of attacking an “educational equity policy” adopted by the school district during their campaigns, adding that emboldened students to harass children of color in the district.
The lawsuit named Michael Peterson, now the board’s president, Becky Myers, Christy Williams, and Kaylee Winegar, as defendants.
“To this day, Majority Board Members employ rhetoric harmful to minority students, and DCSD has failed to implement antidiscrimination trainings. Black and biracial students and parents, and discussions about racism against historically marginalized communities, continue to be portrayed as a problem and dismissed, resulting in an environment ripe for racial harassment and abuse of students,” the lawsuit said.
The four members did not respond to emails sent to each seeking comment.
The lawsuit also described Douglas County as "a predominately White suburban and rural county," and that of the district's 64,000 students, only 1.3% are Black and it has only one Black principal and about 60 Black teachers out of 4,440 educators.
