Iowa’s Ottumwa Community School District has resolved a civil rights complaint that alleged a Black child in one of the district’s middle schools was a victim of racial harassment.

An investigation by the Office of Civil Rights determined for two school years the child was repeatedly called racist and derogatory names by his peers and was forced to learn in a hostile environment.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Dec. 5 affirmed the claim the Black student’s family made in a lawsuit against the Ottumwa Community School District that the child had been bullied based on his race. According to the OCR, the racialized bullying by other students that lasted for two school years (2020-21 and 2021 and 22) was “pervasive in that it constituted a racially hostile environment.”

The harassment, according to the DOE, was initiated by white students who called the victim “blackie,” “cotton picker,” “slave” and the N-word. White students also made monkey noises as the child sat in class and raised fists, mocking the Black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

KTVO reports one child said that Black people are so dark that people can’t see them at midnight.

One student started “using the term KKK and then referring to it as the ‘Kool Kids Klub,’ and telling racially derogatory jokes about, for example, killing a Black man and not being able to see Black people at midnight,” the OCR said in a news release.

“In one instance, a white classmate knelt on a Gatorade bottle in the student’s presence and said, ‘It can’t breathe,’ to mimic George Floyd’s death.”

As a result of the bigoted bullying that was allowed to go unchecked by school officials, the Black victim has suffered significant and enduring emotional harm, the federal agency said.

The OCR said the district was aware of “possible ongoing harassment” but “disregarded its obligations to investigate whether its response to the reported harassment was effective in eliminating the hostile environment, whether it addressed the cumulative effect of the incidents on the harassed student and addressed the impact the verified wide-spread conduct may have had on other students.”

The agency ruled the district failed to “protect the student” or “remedy the racially hostile environment” at the campus, thus violating the student’s constitutionally bound civil rights and failing to fulfill their responsibility as a public institution of learning.

The school worked collaboratively with the government during the investigation.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said “federal civil rights law has for decades promised that no student should experience the racially hostile environment that the young person in this investigation endured.”

“I thank Ottumwa Community School District for committing today to take the steps necessary to ensure that in the future it will respond appropriately to reports of racial harassment so every student in the district’s schools will experience the nondiscriminatory learning environment that federal law guarantees,” Lhamon continued.

Going forward, the district has agreed to implement the following changes to create a safer school experience by implementing various diversity and inclusion initiatives, including training for their staff.

According to the resolution agreement between the DOE and the district, officials will publish “an anti-harassment statement stating that the district does not tolerate acts of harassment, including acts of harassment based on a student’s race, color, or national origin,” and re-examine and revise its policies and procedures” regarding how it protects student’s civil rights, and work to address “harassment based on race, color, or national origin.”

The release states the district staff will be provided training regarding the district’s employees’ “obligation to respond to complaints of harassment based on race, color, or national origin,” who will create or obtain age-appropriate programs and material to educate young people on the dangers of race, ethnic or other forms of harassment.

Lastly, the district must conduct a climate survey with the boy’s former school and assess the degree of racialized bullying at the school and ways to stop it.

The Ottumwa Community School District must reimburse the child’s parent for the expenses she has exhausted on therapeutic services resulting from the ordeal.

The district’s superintendent Michael McGrory said regarding the determination, “The work ahead aligns with our current school board goal of creating a positive working and learning environment for all stakeholders through communication, transparency, and trust.”

He continued saying, “Our framework for high-reliability schools and focus on school safety will ensure that all Office of Civil Rights resolutions flow seamlessly into the work we are already deeply engaged in.”