Lawsuit: Students taunted Black student, threatened lynching

Administrators at a Missouri school district that is the subject of a federal civil rights investigation failed to protect a Black teen from repeated racial taunts that culminated with him being threatened with a lynching, a lawsuit alleges.

The suit filed this month in state court described what happened as “outrageous” and sought unspecified damages against the 3,500-student Kearney school district, which is just north of Kansas City. The situation got so bad that the teen, identified as K.W., called his parents in tears, saying the white students were trying to “incite violence against him" and that he “could not take it anymore.” The teen's parents pulled him from the school.

The district said in a statement that it doesn’t respond to pending litigation but is committed to “fully to ensuring that every student can learn in an environment free of discrimination in any form.”

Online U.S. Department of Education records show there are two open racial harassment investigations involving the district. The department's Office for Civil Rights does not discuss the details of its pending investigations. Dozens of other districts around the country also are under investigation, the records show.

The lawsuit alleges that issues arose during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school year when the student was attending Kearney High School. The suit says fewer than 2% of its students are Black and 92% are white.

When K.W. joined the swim team, white swimmers told him that he needed to “shave his hair short and dye it blonde," the suit said. The student's sister, who according to the suit also had been tormented when she was in junior high, reported what had happened to the coach.

In one instance, she went to a teacher and a principal to report that she had been called a racial slur in...