Book Removals May Have Violated Students’ Rights, Education Department Says
A Georgia school district may have violated its students’ civil rights by removing certain books from its libraries, creating a “hostile environment” for students based on race, sex or national origin, said the United States Department of Education.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights was investigating whether Forsyth County Schools had violated students’ rights, and announced a settlement on Friday.
In a letter to the superintendent of Forsyth County Schools, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said that in the fall of 2021, the district began receiving complaints from some parents that material in the library was sexually explicit or had L.G.B.T.Q. content. The district eventually responded by removing some books. The debate concerning the books’ removal left some students feeling targeted, said Catherine E. Lhamon, the education department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.
The district took steps to “try to adhere to a nondiscriminatory policy,” she said, but those steps were not sufficient to address the hostile environment.
Source: The New York Times
