State Human Rights Division Cannot Deal Complaints against Public Schools

06/13/12

In an opinion that saw the panel sharply divided and judicial logic backed by terse comments, the Court of Appeals, New York, overruled lower court decisions and found that the Division of Human Rights lacked authority to investigate complaints against public schools. The ruling came in the process of dismissing two racial discrimination suits against school districts.


On Tuesday, in a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals, NY, held that the state Human Rights Law applied only to private schools and any relevant discrimination occurring there. People discriminated against by public schools are barred from seeking shelter under state Human Rights law. The state Human Rights Law, incidentally, bars an “education corporation or association” from allowing any discrimination based on race or disability.

Writing for the court, Judge Eugene Pigott held “The use of the term ‘education corporation or association' … plainly referred to private, non-sectarian entities that owned ‘educational' property utilized for a public purpose.”

The court based its logic on the assumption that the phrase ‘corporation or association' in the Human Rights Law was borrowed verbatim from the state tax law. Pigott decided that because the tax law exempts private schools on grounds of serving a public purpose, the term in Human Rights Law would also apply only on such private schools and not to public schools.

Mellissa Goodman, NYCLU senior litigation and policy counsel, denounced the ruling for cutting off an vital remedy against student discrimination. Goodman said, “It goes against the core purpose of the Human Rights Law -- to create equal educational opportunity.”

The ruling came in the process of dismissing two separate racial discrimination cases in public school. In one case, a 12-year old African-American girl claimed that in 2005-06 school years, a group of white students in her Ithaca school repeatedly harassed her, and once told her, “we shoot niggers like you in the woods.” The girl's mental health deteriorated under constant persecution and her grades slipped. The girl's mother filed a complaint with the Division of Human Rights with an administrative judge ruling in her favor granting damages. The Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed the judgment of the lower court. However, delightfully for the school, the Court of Appeals in a narrow majority held that students who are racially discriminated against in public schools cannot approach the Human Rights Division for redress. In the other case, a girl was constantly taunted by classmates as “gorilla.” The lower courts found discrimination, but again, the immaculate intelligence of Judge Pigott, in the Court of Appeals, found that because of the similarity of terms in the language used in the Human Rights Law, with the language used in Tax Law, the Human Rights Division lacked authority to do anything in the case.

The dissenting judges, Victoria Graffeo, Susan Read, and Robert Smith observed, “The vicious attacks to which these students were subjected are deplorable, and our holding is not to be interpreted as indifference to their plight.”

In a separate dissent, Judge Carmen Cliparick, observed that the Human Rights Law was designed to ensure all students a “bias-free education,” and that “it is implausible that the legislature intended to exempt public schools and the thousands of children who attend these schools from the protection of the Human Rights Law.”