Albuquerque – School leaders in a southern New Mexico district will not face federal sanctions for allowing a high school project on racism in which students posted signs reading “Whites Only” and “People of Color” above water faucets, officials said.
But the Truth or Consequences school district will have to implement procedures for addressing racial-harassment claims and offer lessons about racial harassment to students and staff, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights said.
Students at Hot Springs High School launched the project last year for an English class focusing on social justice. The students hoped to secretly monitor the reactions of people when they viewed the signs. Other students tore down the signs within minutes.
Student Gabriel Reynolds, who is black, said the signs shocked and angered him. He complained that he was humiliated, and his family filed complaints with the federal and state education departments.
The boy’s mother, Susan Reynolds, released a letter from the federal agency, which determined the school district “failed to adequately respond to a known racially hostile environment at the high school.”
The letter cited instances in which white and Hispanic students were subjected to discrimination and reported that other students had heard derogatory terms used in references to Gabriel Reynolds.
