Suit Protecting Native American Students Advances

The ACLU of Northern California's  class action lawsuit on behalf of Native American middle schoolers in the small town of Klamath advanced in April when a federal judge rejected the school district’s motion to have the ACLU-NC’s suit dismissed.

The ACLU-NC brought suit against the Del Norte County Unified School District at the request of parents after it closed the sixth to eighth grades at the only school in the district where a majority of students are Native American children. Margaret Keating School, located on the Yurok Reservation, plays a crucial part in preserving tribal culture by providing instruction in the Yurok language and skills central to Yurok culture. Its closure has meant that these students, most of whom live on the reservation, must be bused for approximately three hours, round-trip, to another school in the district that is unequipped to provide instruction in Native American language and culture.

The United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) investigated and concluded that the Native American students had been discriminated against, meaning that they have been harmed in direct, unnecessary ways. ACLU-NC’s research also discovered systematic discriminatory discipline and racial harassment of students.

ACLU-NC attorney Jory Steele, joined by co-counsel Don Brown and Stephen George, both of Covington & Burling, LLP, argued before Judge Thelton Henderson in April that the District is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We also pointed out that the district had several opportunities to reduce expenditures that would have been far more effective – and less discriminatory - than closing the three grades at the school. Judge Henderson rejected the District’s attempt to dismiss our suit, noting that we had alleged facts sufficient to defeat the District’s Motion to Dismiss.