Justice Department Rules on Anti-Asian Violence at Lafayette High School

By Mark Liu
Posted 6/26/04

After at least three years of operating a dangerous environment for students, Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, New York is being forced to make changes to how it is being run.   During the 2002-2003 school year, the school averaged a violent attack every three days, many of those against students of Asian descent.   Some of those attacks include assaults with chains, martial arts sticks, and a combination lock.   The incidents were first reported by the A-zine in an August 2001 article.

At the beginning of the month, the federal Justice Department found school officials deliberately ignored the "severe and pervasive" harassment of Asian American students by their classmates.   Besides the violent attacks reported by the A-zine, other problems at the school included Asian American students who met graduation requirements after three years were sent home while non-Asian were not.   The English as a Second Language was also charged with being deficient in many areas.

Under a consent decree between the federal courts and the Department of Education, the school will start "diversity and tolerance" training for students.   A policy will also be created to clarify what cases of harassment has to be reported by the school.   A school official will be designated to handle student complaints.   Finally, the decree called for students to be placed in ESL classes within ten days and translation services to be improved.   The school has also the doubled the number of security personnel at the school.