Feds Examine Years Of Sex Harassment Claims In Newark Schools

NEWARK, NJ — “Forcible” kissing and groping between students. Sexual cyber bullying. Sex assault involving employees. These are some of the sexual harassment complaints that New Jersey’s largest public school district has failed to properly investigate over the past decade, the U.S. Department of Education claims.

On Monday, the agency’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that the Newark Public School District has entered into a resolution agreement involving allegations that it repeatedly violated Title IX, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.

The agency’s letter to Newark Public Schools District can be seen online here, and the agreement can be seen here.

Federal investigators reviewed 80 sexual harassment complaints between students that were reported to the district between 2017 and 2020.

The OCR said 27 complaints were reported at high schools. Two Newark high schools each saw about 26 percent of the entire total for that group: Barringer High School and East Side High School. In addition, Weequahic High School received three complaints, two of them involving students with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Dr. E. Alma Flagg Elementary School saw about 19 percent of the 53 complaints at elementary schools, investigators said.

According to the Department of Education, the student-to-student incidents involved “sexual assault, coerced oral sex, forcible kissing, forcible groping of breasts/genital areas/buttocks, sexual cyber-bullying, inappropriate sexualized ‘games’ such as ‘the rape game’ (groping during a game of tag on the playground), and filming or sharing footage of sexual acts at school.”

The agency also looked at five complaints of employee-to-student sexual harassment, including two at Central High School and one each at Chancellor Avenue Elementary School, Horton Elementary School, and Peshine Avenue School.

Investigators said the employee-to-student incidents involved “sexual assault, unwanted touching (including sexual touching of genital areas), kissing, sexually harassing comments and online sexual harassment.”

TAKING APPROPRIATE STEPS

Under Title IX regulations, a school district must take “appropriate steps” to investigate when it gets notice about a potential sexual harassment case, and may have to take “interim measures” while the investigation is taking place. These can possibly include counseling, extensions of time or other course-related adjustments, modifications of work or class schedules, campus escort services, restrictions on contact between the parties, changes in work locations, leaves of absence, increased security, and monitoring of certain areas of campus, and other similar accommodations.

After a “careful review” of the evidence, the OCR found a total of nine violations of the district’s obligations under Title IX and one compliance concern.

Some of the complaints resulted in arrests and firings, the OCR noted. For example, a 1:1 personal aide was terminated about six weeks after sexual harassment allegations involving a student surfaced in 2019. New Jersey state officials also pursued criminal charges against the aide.

However, federal authorities added that in that case, Newark administrators didn't properly assess whether the situation was creating a "sexually hostile environment" for other students.

The Newark school district – which did not admit fault as part of the agreement – will have to follow several conditions to ensure that it is complying with the law, federal authorities said Monday.

Those conditions include:

• Ensuring that the Title IX coordinator coordinates all of the district’s efforts to comply with Title IX moving forward, including but not limited to all district investigations of sexual harassment involving its students and employees.
• Developing a program to assess the effectiveness of the district’s Title IX anti-discrimination efforts.
• Revising Title IX policies and procedures to comply with the Title IX regulations.
• Training staff and students regarding the district’s Title IX procedures, how to identify what constitutes sexual harassment, and how to report such harassment.
• Maintaining required records regarding reports of sexual harassment.
• Reviewing case files for reported incidents of employee-to-student and student-to-student sexual harassment from school years 2017-2018 through 2021-2022 to determine if further action is needed to provide an equitable resolution of each incident.
• Disseminating a notice of nondiscrimination that complies with Title IX.
• Administering an annual school climate survey to district employees and students to evaluate the climate at each district school with respect to sexual harassment and identify needed responsive steps for OCR review and approval.

“[The Newark Public School District] did not meet its Title IX obligations to protect its students from sexual harassment – including from district employees – but has now committed to robust resolution terms to provide the safe and nondiscriminatory learning environment that Title IX has promised all students,” said the agency’s assistant secretary for civil rights, Catherine Lhamon.

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