TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on May 31, 2022

A lawsuit filed last week by the mother of a Hawkins County eighth grader says the county’s school system failed to act after her son was repeatedly subjected to racially-motivated attacks, the Tennessee Lookout reports. The lawsuit says the student, who is biracial, was subjected to a “racially-hostile school environment” where he was called by a “barrage” of “racial epithets” and taunted with hate-based drawings and caricatures. The suit says officials from the Hawkins County Board of Education “knowingly tolerated, condoned, and were deliberately indifferent to the pattern of racial harassment suffered by” the plaintiff’s son. School officials “vehemently” deny that the system “tolerates racial discrimination or harassment of any kind.” The suit seeks an injunction against the school system to prevent further abuse and $2.5 million in damages.