Vermont school district settles with federal investigators over allegations of racial harassment
MORRISTOWN, Vt. — A Vermont school district’s inadequate response to severe and widespread harassment of Black and biracial students has led to a settlement agreement with the federal government, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday.
The department’s Civil Rights Division and the Vermont U.S. Attorney’s Office began investigating the Elmore-Morristown Unified Union School District in December 2023, reviewing records and complaints from the previous three school years. Researchers concluded that students, primarily at the high school level, were regularly exposed to insults and racist imagery, including the use of the N-word and the display of Confederate flags and Nazi symbols.
“Racial harassment makes students feel unsafe, deprives them of a supportive educational environment and violates the Constitution’s most fundamental promise of equal protection,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “We look forward to the district showing its students that racial bullying and harassment have no place in its schools.”
Superintendent Ryan Heraty said Wednesday that these comments do not reflect the district’s current reality, as the number of such incidents has decreased dramatically.
“As students returned from the pandemic, we saw a significant increase in mid-level behavior, which was very concerning,” he said in an email. “In response, we took many deliberate steps to address this behavior, which the DOJ recognized in its review.”
In a letter to parents and other community members Tuesday, Heraty said the district firmly opposes any form of racism and responds immediately to reported incidents. In the current school year, there have been no reported incidents of racial harassment at the district’s elementary school and a “very limited” number at the middle and high schools, he said.
The Justice Department said the district has fully cooperated with the investigation and has already made some improvements, including the introduction of a central reporting system to track incidents. The district also agreed to review anti-harassment policies and procedures, conduct listening sessions with student groups and implement formal training and education programs for students and staff.