A gender discrimination complaint has been made against seventy Tennessee school districts.
It claims that the corporal punishment policy used by those districts treats boys and girls differently.
Tennesseans for Nonviolent School Discipline says it filed the claim with the U.S. Department of Education. The group takes issue with a requirement, common to each of the seventy districts, that a students’ gender be taken into account when deciding the use and degree of corporal punishment.
Board member Tom Johnson also questions whether paddling should be used at all.
“Ideally, it might spur some schools to reconsider the use of corporal punishment, but failing that we’re calling on them to revise their policies so they contain no prescriptions of unequal treatment based on gender.”
The policy in question is one of more than a hundred sample policies written by the Tennessee School Boards Association. Districts can choose to adopt the boilerplate language as-is or modify it to meet their needs.
Spokesman Steve Doremus points out that the corporal punishment measure specifies that paddling be a last resort and sets out a number of considerations limiting its use.
“It’s been quite a while since we’ve had anybody raise any issues about this policy, and if there is a question about it that affects a large number or significant number of our districts, then of course we’ll look at that policy and compare it to the complaint and see anything needs to be done.”
The complaint does not specifically question the use of corporal punishment. It does allege that the policy as written is unconstitutional.
Web Extra:
Johnson says the claim was filed Tuesday online, with a separate signature page mailed to the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Wednesday. The content of the complaint, as provided by Tennesseans for Nonviolent School Discipline is as follows:
“This complaint arises not from specific acts of discrimination but rather from an ongoing and expressly discriminatory written policy held in common by 70 or more school districts within the state of Tennessee.”
The pertinent clause of this policy, whose language is identical for virtually all of these districts and which is most often published as section 6.314 of an individual district’s comprehensive policy manual, is as follows:
“In determining the use and degree of corporal punishment, consideration will be given to the age, sex, size, physical and emotional condition of the child [emphasis added].”
The inclusion of “sex” (i.e., gender) as a factor in how corporal punishment is to be administered is patently inconsistent with Title IX. Insofar as this guideline is observed in Tennessee public schools, the paddling which is meted out for any given misconduct will vary depending on whether the student in question is a boy or a girl. We assert that students, male and female alike, have a right to be disciplined in a way on which their gender has no bearing and that discrimination of this kind is unconstitutional.
We have identified the following Tennessee districts as having this policy, with the proviso that there may be others among the several whose status in this regard we were not able to determine:
Athens (264 East Park St., Alamo TN 38001)
Bedford County (500 Madison St., Shelbyville TN 37160)
Bradley County (800 South Lee Hw, Cleveland TN 37311)
Bristol (615 Martin Luther King Jr Bl, Bristol TN 37620)
Campbell County (522 Main Street, Jacksboro TN 37757)
Cannon County (301 West Main St., Woodbury TN 37190)
Carroll County (14155 Paris St., Huntingdon TN 38344)
Carter County (305 Academy St., Elizabethton TN 37643)
Cheatham County (102 Elizabeth St., Ashland City TN 37015)
Chester County (970 East Main, Henderson TN 38340)
Claiborne County (1403 Tazewell Rd., Tazewell TN 37879)
Clay County (520 South Brown St., 520 South Brown St., Celina TN 38551)
Cleveland (4300 Mouse Creek Nw Rd., Cleveland TN 37312)
Clinton (212 N Hicks St., Clinton TN 37716)
Cocke County (305 Hedrick Dr., Newport TN 37821)
Coffee County (1343 McArthur St., Manchester TN 37355)
Cumberland County (368 4th St., Crossville TN 38555)
Decatur County (59 West Main St., Decaturville TN 38329)
Dickson County (817 N Charlotte St., Dickson TN 37055)
Elizabethton (804 S Watauga Ave., Elizabethton TN 37643)
Fayette County (126 West Market St., Somerville TN 38068)
Fayetteville City Schools (110a South Elk Ave., Fayetteville TN 37334)
Gibson County SP District (130 Hwy 45 W Box D, Dyer TN 38330)
Greene County (910 Summer St., Greeneville TN 37743)
Hamblen County ( 210 East Morris Blvd., Morristown TN 37813)
Hardin County (155 Guinn St., Savannah TN 38372)
Hawkins County (200 N Depot St., Rogersville TN 37857)
Haywood County (900 East Main St., Brownsville TN 38012)
Henry County (217 Grove Bl., Paris TN 38242)
Humboldt (1421 Osborne St., Humboldt TN 38343)
Huntingdon SSD ( 585 High St., Huntingdon TN 38344)
Jefferson County (1221 Gay St., Dandridge TN 37725)
Lexington (70 Dixon St., Lexington TN 38351)
Lincoln County (206 E Davidson Dr., Fayetteville TN 37334)
Loudon County (100 River Rd., Loudon TN 37774)
Jackson-Madison County (310 North Pw., Jackson TN 38305)
Manchester (215 East Fort St., Manchester TN 37355)
Marion County (204 Betsy Pack Dr., Jasper TN 37347)
Marshall County (700 Jones Cr., Lewisburg TN 37091)
McKenzie (114 W Bell Ave., McKenzie TN 38201)
McMinn County (216 N Jackson, Athens TN 37303)
McNairy County (170 West Court Ave., Selmer TN 38375)
Meigs County (345 North Main St., Decatur TN 37322)
Milan Special (1165 South Main St., Milan TN 38358)
Monroe County (205 Oak Grove Rd., Madisonville TN 37354)
Moore County (241 Main St., Lynchburg TN 37352)
Morgan County (136 Flat Fork Rd., Wartburg TN 37887)
Obion County (316 South Third St., Union City TN 38261)
Oneida (195 North Bank, Oneida TN 37841)
Overton County (302 Zachary St., Livingston TN 38570)
Paris SSD (1219 Hwy 641 S, Paris TN 38242)
Polk County (131 Stephens Cr., Benton TN 37307)
Putnam County (1400 East Spring St., Cookeville TN 38506)
Rhea County (305 California Ave., Dayton TN 37321)
Richard City and Deptford ISD (1620 Hamilton Ave, South Pittsburg TN 37380)
Roane County (105 Bluff Rd., Kingston TN 37763)
Rutherford County (2240 Southpark Bl, Murfreesboro TN 37128)
Scott County (208 Court St., Huntsville TN 37756)
Sevier County (226 Cedar St., Sevierville TN 37862)
South Carroll (145 Clarksburg Rd., Clarksburg TN 38324)
Tipton County (1580 Highway 51 S, Covington TN 38019)
Trenton SSD (201 W 10th St., Trenton TN 38382)
Trousdale County (103 Lock Six Rd., Hartsville TN 37074-2019)
Tullahoma (510 S Jackson St., Tullahoma TN 37388)
Unicoi County (600 N Elm Ave., Erwin TN 37650)
Union City (408 South Depot St., Union City TN 38261)
Warren County (2548 Morrison St., McMinnville TN 37110)
Washington County (405 W College St., Jonesborough TN 37659)
Wayne County (419 South Main St., Waynesboro TN 38485)
Wilson County (351 Stumpy Ln., Lebanon TN 37090)
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