Exclusive: Lawyer asks feds to investigate CMS response to reported sexual assaults
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Title IX complaints in CMS
From lawsuits at Myers Park High to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools reassigning administrators amid controversy, this is the latest on sexual assault cases and Title IX issues in the district.
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A nationally known attorney is asking the federal government to open an investigation into the way Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools responds to reports of sexual misconduct.
Laura Dunn also is requesting the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to contemplate sanctions against CMS due to “its ongoing failure to come into compliance with Title IX after repeated opportunities to do so from OCR.”
Dunn represents multiple CMS students who have reported being sexually assaulted on campus, including one who faces punishment after telling school officials she was sexually assaulted in a campus bathroom.
“Students have been paying the price for this noncompliance, which has been manifesting for almost a decade now in widespread mishandling of sexual assault complaints,” Dunn wrote on Monday to the OCR and Michael Cardona, the U.S. Secretary of Education, among others.
Dunn, a Washington, D.C.-based victims’ rights attorney and national expert on Title IX, along with other national experts blasted CMS last week after leaders at Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences attempted to suspend a 15-year-old female student who principals judged was lying about a sexual attack in a campus bathroom.
The student was subsequently handed a 1-day suspension and told to take a Sexual Harassment Is Preventable, or SHIP, class. The 17-year-old male suspect in the case was criminally charged, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.
After various media reports and public outcry, the district suspended the principal and assistant principal involved in the school’s Title IX investigation of the incident, reopened the case and put the 15-year-old’s suspension on hold.
But leaders’ initial response, which experts agreed goes against Title IX regulations, laid bare the continuing controversy surrounding Title IX complaints and cases in CMS. Title IX is part of federal education law that prohibits discrimination based on sex and requires schools to thoroughly investigate harassment or sexual violence reports from students or staff.
“This situation warrants the weight of the federal government to finally ensure gender equality within CMS,” Dunn wrote. She also copied members of the White House Gender Policy Council in the email letter.
CMS officials have refused to respond to questions regarding Title IX cases, citing student privacy. The district had not responded as of Monday afternoon to a request for comment on Dunn’s call for the federal government’s involvement.
A history of issues
Dunn’s email to OCR and the U.S. Department of Justice gives notice of “ongoing Title IX issues within CMS.”
At least one Title IX lawsuit is pending against CMS, related to a reported sexual assault at Myers Park High in 2015. A similar suit was settled for $50,000 in the spring. Dunn is representing both cases.
Those cases accelerated criticism of the district’s policies around Title IX.
Hawthorne is the latest in a string of high-profile cases and controversies that have followed:
▪ At Myers Park, former principal Mark Bosco maintained he followed rules and federal law regarding response to reported harassment and assault. Still, he was placed on a three-month paid suspension which ended with CMS reassigning him in October to another job away from the high school. The former students who sued, and others who came forward with similar cases, were infuriated the district excluded them from its internal investigation into Myers Park’s Title IX response.
▪ In early October, an athlete was allowed to play football for Olympic High School after being criminally charged with a felony sex offense. When students walked out of class for a peaceful protest, members of the school’s volleyball team were suspended.
Following the Hawthorne Academy incident, more than 36,000 people have signed a petition calling on CMS board members, who are elected, as well as school leaders, to be fired.
“It’s a terrible thing for a school to silence its own students, especially children who have gone through sexual violence,” Brenda Star Adams told the Observer. Adams leads the Equal Rights Advocates’ Title IX litigation. “This girl has already gone through so much trauma, both the assault itself, and then the betrayal by her school’s leadership. ... It’s unacceptable.”
Previously, as first reported this summer by the Observer, CMS was warned its administrators weren’t following related Title IX regulations. Five years ago, in response to a complaint from one of the Myers Park plaintiffs, federal investigators with the OCR largely found in favor of the district but said school officials did not satisfy its obligation to keep in touch with the victim, or notify both the male and female student of its investigation outcome.
Dunn pointed to two previous OCR investigations of CMS in her letter.
“Despite these reviews, OCR has failed to ensure the school district’s Title IX compliance to date,” Dunn said.
According to its website, OCR evaluates the written information that “it receives to determine whether it constitutes a complaint that is subject to further processing.” If the office determines that it will investigate the complaint, it will notify the complainant and recipient.
“Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that OCR has made a determination with regard to the merits of the complaint,” the website states.
During the investigation, OCR collects evidence from everyone involved. It explains its conclusion in a Letter of Findings sent to the complainant and recipient.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 12:53 PM.
