PERKASIE, Pa. – Families and attorneys filed an amended complaint Tuesday alleging that the Pennridge School District continues to maintain a “hostile environment” for students of color and LGBTQ+ students, according to a news release from the Education Law Center.
The amended complaint was filed on behalf of the Bucks County NAACP, the PairUP Society, and the affected families by the Education Law Center-PA and the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic at the Carey Law School of the University of Pennsylvania.
The amended complaint, filed with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education, alleges a pattern of persistent racist bullying at the Pennridge school, including racial slurs against black students and a refusal to protect students from known and widespread racist harassment, the press release said.
The complaint also details anti-LGBTQ+ policies at Pennridge, including removing LGBTQ+ materials from libraries and implementing a new restroom policy aimed at restricting restroom use by transgender students, the press release states. The Education Law Center says the intense harassment of LGBTQ+ students and students of color has led some students to switch to online instruction or to other districts to escape the district’s hostile conditions, while others have suffered emotionally and psychologically and required intervention and care.
After years of efforts to bring problems at the schools to light, parents, students and advocates brought conditions at Pennridge to the attention of a wider public through the first federal civil rights complaint filed in November 2023, authorities said.
The complaint called on the school district to directly address racial and gender-based harassment to prevent it from happening again and to take measures that explicitly promote the inclusion of marginalized students, the press release said.
“Students across the area are preparing to return to school, but marginalized students in Pennridge do not have truly equal access to education,” said Cara McClellan, director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic. “Pennridge has a legal and moral obligation to combat racial and gender-based harassment to ensure an inclusive environment for all students.”
According to the press release, the Office of Civil Rights issued a policy clarifying that a school district violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act if, based on the totality of the circumstances, it “creates, promotes, accepts, tolerates, exacerbates, or allows unhindered” an environment that “limits or denies any person’s opportunity to participate in or benefit from any educational program or activity of a school” because of race, color, or national origin. Title IX provides similar protections based on sex, and school districts’ responsibilities were clarified and expanded by new Title IX regulations that took effect on August 1.
69 News has reached out to the district for comment but has not yet received a response.
