Student with swastika not provided proper education by CCSD, lawsuit alleges
A Jewish student with autism, who returned home from school earlier this year with an apparent swastika carved into his back, was pulled from Clark High School and hasn’t received an adequate education since, his attorneys allege.
The Lawfare Project, which provides pro bono legal services, laid out the allegations in a complaint against Clark County School District, and in a Thursday interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The complaint, which alleges a violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and discrimination due to an anti-Semitic incident, was filed with the Nevada Department of Education.
If the matter isn’t solved through a January mediation session, the case will be overseen by a hearing officer contracted by the Department of Education, attorney Hillary Freeman said.
Freeman said the case could escalate into a federal lawsuit. A school district spokesperson said that the district doesn’t discuss pending litigation.
The nonverbal teen was one of the few students who wore a kippah at the school, the Israeli-American Council said earlier this year. The now 18-year-old senior was not named in the complaint.
The alleged incident occurred in mid-March, and the student hasn’t returned to school since because of safety concerns, attorney Ziporah Reich said.
“We don’t know who they are, and whether or not they’re still in school,” she said about the person or persons responsible for the attack. “We don’t even know if it’s staff of the school or students or somebody from the outside that came into the school. We have no idea.”
Clark County School District police said in April that they took a report, conducted interviews and checked surveillance footage at the school, but could not find images that captured the incident.
The FBI’s Las Vegas office said it was aware of the incident, and noted that it would investigate the case if a federal civil rights violation was substantiated.
The school district did not provide an update on Thursday.
“We had obviously — when this first happened — wanted law enforcement to take charge of this and to do an excellent investigation,” Reich said. “And unfortunately, law enforcement did not do that.”
She added: “They did what we call a very cursory investigation and then just dropped it, unfortunately to the detriment of this student.”
The compliant notes that the student was pulled from in-person learning by his parents, and alleges the district has not provided a satisfactory schooling experience, something it’s required to do through federal mandate.
Freeman said that the school district hasn’t been able to meet those requirements.
“They’ve provided a kernel of what they’re supposed to provide under federal and state law,” Reich added.
Under federal law, the teenager is entitled to special education beyond his senior year, and the attorneys are seeking compensatory education from the district through outside programs, said Freeman, noting that they would also seek financial damages if the complaint proceeds into a lawsuit.
The attorneys said that the event devastated the boy’s family.
“Of course, anybody would be finding … a swastika violently carved into your child’s back and not knowing what your child went through because he can’t even communicate it,” Reich said.
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @rickytwrites.
