Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts already launched a civil rights investigation on Thursday into the Boston Latin School. The decision for the enquiry came after black students filed their complaints that the school administration ignored incidents of racism on the campus.
According to Yahoo! News, eight civil rights organizations, which include the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the Boston branch of the NAACP, prompted U.S. lawyer Carmen Ortiz last week to initiate a probe into the accused racism happening on the school campus. "We will conduct a thorough investigation into the recent complaints about racism at BLS and will go where the facts lead us," Ortiz stated on Thursday.
Prior to the statement, the U.S. attorney already said on Wednesday that she already agreed to conduct an enquiry following the allegations of racism at Boston Lain School. This move is a request from a lot of community groups, which want to have a thorough investigation into the complaints of harassment and discrimination at the elite school.
Ortiz claimed that there is no exact schedule for the probe. But the lawyer promises to look for both criminal and civil violations of the Civil Rights Act.
BOSTON GLOBE INSIDERS reported that, the request for the federal investigation came from the eight civil rights and community organizations that say that the racial harassment possess alarm to both the students and the school. The civil rights and community organizations also argued a recent school department probe into the racial discriminations at the elite school, but it did not go on to collect more details.
"We really need an independent third party like the US attorney to make sure that what happened did violate or didn't violate the students' rights," Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, mentioned on Wednesday. Ortiz's decision to launch a probe "speaks to how disturbing the incidents have been," he added.
Lynne Mooney Teta, which is Boston Latin's headmaster, has refused to take action with the calls of some black leaders in the city for her to resign, as claimed by Reuters. But Teta promised to improve handling on the racial climate at the school. "If we are falling short for some of our students, then we are falling short for all of our students," she wrote in an open letter. She continued by stating, "There is work to be done."
Meanwhile, if the U.S. attorney's investigation turns out to find criminal wrongdoing on the school, charges could be filed. But if the civil rights violations are still uncovered, the office would allegedly require solutions to force the school to reform its standards and procedures.
