Department of Education finds Southlake Carroll schools violated students’ civil rights

Three years after students and their parents filed complaints detailing discrimination due to race, gender and sexual orientation, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights found that the Carroll school district violated students’ civil rights.

Antonio Ingram, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is representing several families who filed complaints against the school district, said Southlake Carroll school officials will have 90 days to negotiate a resolution to the violations that were found to have occurred.

If there is no resolution after 90 days, the Department of Education could begin enforcement proceedings, including calling upon the Justice Department or withholding federal funds, Ingram said.

The Star-Telegram requested interviews with Superintendent Lane Ledbetter and school board president Cameron Bryan, but did not receive a response.

Ingram said the Office for Civil Rights officials conducted interviews with students, teachers and parents and determined there was enough evidence to show that Carroll violated students civil rights.

“This corroborates the narrative of what our clients have been talking about for years,” Ingram said. “The complaints described discrimination on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation.”

Angela Jones, who filed complaints on behalf of her youngest son and other students who were facing discrimination and bullying, said she is glad that the government investigated her complaints. But said she doesn’t trust the school board to negotiate in good faith because of past actions, which include scrapping a district and community effort to craft a cultural competence plan and rolling back other protections for marginalized students.

“Our district takes pride in bucking the system,” Jones said.

Jones, whose three children were in the Carroll school district, said students repeatedly called her youngest son the n-word and sometimes said “filthy n-word,” she said.

“When my son finally told me about it, it broke my heart. I asked why didn’t you tell me this sooner, and he said, I’m tired of it,” Jones said.

Jones said after she complained to the school district, the students who were accused of using racial slurs were disciplined, but Jones said she was not told how the students were punished.

“If the punishments were severe enough, it should have been shut down, and it wasn’t,” she said. “We saw the ugliness from the community, but we knew we were right.”

After a video surfaced in 2018 of students chanting the n-word, the community and school board members banded together and demanded an end to the bullying and harassment.

“When the video came out, everybody was up in arms, and then it just flipped,” Jones said.

A committee that included residents and school district representatives worked on a draft of a cultural competence plan until pressure from conservative groups, including the Southlake Families PAC, led the district to scrap the plan. Southlake Families was spearheaded by Tim O’Hare, who is now the Tarrant County judge.

Meanwhile, Ingram said he is hoping the district will work with the Department of Education to resolve the complaints.

“This investigation and the findings is about students going to school and feeling safe and that they belong,” he said.