Nashville Public School District, Sexual Harassment of Students with Disabilities, Tennessee 2023

Nine-year-old autistic child assaulted on unmonitored special education school bus and compelled to perform oral sex on a nineteen-year-old student with known proclivities for sexually predatory behavior in Nashville, Tennessee.

The United States intervened in the lawsuit, Lopez & U.S. v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, et al., to address systemic deficiencies that resulted in episodes of sexual assault and harassment of students with disabilities on special education buses operated by the school district.

These acts of harassment violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination and harassment based on sex.

The agreement, in the form of a consent decree and subject to approval by Judge Robert Echols, obligates the Nashville Public School District to take substantial steps to enhance the security of students with disabilities on its public school transportation system.

These steps include staffing bus monitors to assist drivers on all special education buses; implementing comprehensive screening procedures to ensure that students with disabilities are not assigned to buses where they would be at risk of harassment; expediting the investigation of suspected acts of sexual harassment involving students with disabilities; and ensuring open lines of communication between transportation officials and school-based personnel.

The settlement includes a payment of $1.475 million to the victim, a nine-year-old autistic child who was assaulted on an unmonitored special education school bus in Nashville, Tennessee.

The enforcement of Title IX in school districts is a top priority of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

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