Civil Rights Complaint Filed Against CCSD
Complaint alleges “discriminatory censorship” through book banning.
It looks like the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, dear Reader, at least for the Cobb County School District. On Monday, May 13, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) filed two complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) asking for an investigation into Cobb County School District and Florida’s Collier County Public School District accusing them of creating a hostile environment for students through book bans targeting books about and written by members of the LGBT community and people of color.
As reported in the Marietta Daily Journal, the complaint reads in part:
Both public schools are systemically marginalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) students in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and students of color in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). The discriminatory efforts to censor these books and learning materials have harmed students by creating and fostering a hostile environment in which they feel unsafe to be who they are at school, feel unsupported or in their identities, and cannot see themselves reflected in what they learn at school.
This school year, CCSD has announced they will remove 25 books from library shelves. We know these books very well because the Marietta City Schools Board of Education banned them first. You will remember we have reported extensively on the discriminatory consequences of the MCS School Board’s book bans for LGBT students and families in the district as close to half of the 25 books banned contained LGBT characters, themes, or authors. Our deep dive investigation of the book banning debacle uncovered open records warning about how LGBT stories will be more likely to be censored under the BOE’s criteria for removal.
Marietta City Schools is not part of the OCR complaint. CCSD went a step beyond book censorship last June and fired elementary school teacher Katie Rinderle for reading the book, My Shadow is Purple, a book about accepting each other’s differences. Rinderle has filed a discrimination lawsuit against CCSD.
The NWLC’s complaint makes the following recommendations:
Restore all books that were banned because they feature people of color or LGBTQIA+ people or discuss race or LGBTQIA+ identity.
Refrain from removing any books in the future because they feature people of color or LGBTQIA+ people or discuss race or LGBTQIA+ identity.
Clarify in school district mission statements and policies that they value diversity and are committed to ensuring safe, inclusive, and supportive campuses free from discrimination.
Ensure students understand how to report incidents of harassment and discrimination with their schools and with OCR.
Rectify their policies and practices contributing to a hostile environment for students of color and LGBTQIA+ students through recommendations listed in the complaints.
Stay tuned for more information as we receive it. If you want to understand exactly how the MCS School Board’s book bans went down, we recommend our article that details the whole timeline and is based on thousands of pages of open records documents. You can read it here.