ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York State Division of Human Rights lacks jurisdiction to investigate students’ civil rights complaints against their public school districts, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York State Division of Human Rights lacks jurisdiction to investigate students’ civil rights complaints against their public school districts, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday.
The Court of Appeals, divided 4-3, reversed two midlevel courts in complaints against the Ithaca City School District and the North Syracuse Central School District. In the Ithaca case, the division awarded $200,000 each to a girl and her mother after finding school officials failed to adequately respond to racial harassment.
The court majority said public school districts are not an "education corporation or association" under state law that the division can investigate, though that provision which originated in early tax law does apply to private schools.
"The vicious attacks to which these students were subjected are deplorable, and our holding is not to be interpreted as indifference to their plight, since the merits of their underlying discrimination claims are not at issue in these appeals," Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. wrote. "Nor does our holding leave public school students without a remedy. In addition to potential remedies under federal law, public school students may file a complaint with the commissioner of education."
Pigott noted that the Legislature in 2010 enacted a new education law provision intended to provide all public school students with an environment free of harassment and from discrimination based on race, color, weight, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender.
Judges Victoria Graffeo, Susan Read and Robert Smith Jr. agreed with Pigott.
The court dissenters said exempting public schools contradicts the plain language and declared purpose of the state Human Rights Law.
Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick noted that the Ithaca case involved a 12-year-old African American student who was repeatedly subjected to racial slurs, threats and physical harm in 2005-2006 on the school bus from a group of white male students. The school gave only "ineffective" one- or two-day suspensions to the boys and refused to ban them from the bus, while the girl’s grades and mental health deteriorated, she wrote.
At North Syracuse, a woman complained that her 14-year-old daughter was harassed and called names because she was African American. School officials told state investigators she was targeted by bullies and harassed based on personal hygiene and weight, not race, though the division found probable cause of a violation, Ciparick wrote.
"It is implausible that the Legislature intended to exempt public schools and the thousands of children who attend these schools from the protection of the Human Rights Law and oversight of the State Division of Human Rights," she wrote.
Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and Judge Theodore Jones Jr. agreed with Ciparick.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
About Post Author
