When Students’ Rights are Violated at School

High-profile lawsuits in the Denver metro area have shown the importance of educational law when students are facing discrimination at school. 

A prominent example is the case against Prairie Middle School teacher Brian Vasquez. A student came forward in 2013 reporting a sexual relationship with Vasquez, and the school allegedly pressured her into recanting, stressing the damage her report would do to the teacher. 

She ultimately took it back and was suspended for lying. The teacher went on to have sexual relationships with at least four other minors until his arrest in 2017. He’s now serving a 40-year sentence. “That is a systematic failure we fortunately don’t see all the time,” says Matt Cron, partner at Rathod Mohamedbhai, “but it’s certainly happening more than that one time.”

Be on Guard 

Parents can often second-guess whether or not they should report something that isn’t right, Cron says. “They fall back on this implicit trust.”

The onus is on families to speak up, and when that fails, it’s time to call an attorney, Cron says. “A lot of our cases have come to light because children did incredible things to advocate for themselves.”

A case centering on systematic racism and discrimination brought against Castle Rock Middle School last year only came about because students spoke up. Among the allegations, one concerned a history lesson in which the teacher divided students into sides to argue the pros and cons of Jim Crow laws, assigning a Black student to argue the benefits. 

Inappropriate Discipline

Suspensions and expulsions make up another growing concern. For solo attorney Elie Zwiebel, his experience as a high school teacher inspired him to make a career change. “I saw a lot of my students being pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline through various policies or legal doctrines,” he says.

“Students are being expelled and suspended from schools for low-level, non-violent issues. For example, profanity use or talking back to teachers. In one case, a child threw a pencil toward a trash can and he was cited for ‘use of a deadly weapon.’”

Previously, a school would have dealt with these types of disobedience. Now, he says, discipline is increasingly outsourced to law enforcement through the use of school resource officers. And while the Colorado legislature is clear that expulsion should be used as a last resort, Zwiebel continues to see it used for minor offenses.

An even bigger issue pertains to a Colorado statue that allows students to be expelled for behavior unrelated to school, even if their case hasn’t gone to court yet. Then, that expulsion hurts their legal case, Zwiebel says, because prosecutors and judges will hold it against the student if they are not actively engaged in school.

“In Colorado, students are being held guilty until proven innocent,” he adds. 

Taking Action

If students are in this position, it’s time to call an attorney. “Schools will tell parents this is not a legal proceeding,” he says. “It is, and it carries all the weight of a legal proceeding. There are direct consequences for a student being expelled that will have implications for their legal case.”

This practice disproportionally impacts students of color, with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students as well as those in foster care, struggling with poverty, and who are members of disenfranchised and marginalized groups. Zwiebel says some school districts in Colorado are investigating their use of the expulsion statute to ensure they aren’t abusing it.

“The vast majority of educators are extremely noble, selfless and pillars of our society,” Cron says. 

But people make mistakes or have bad judgement. Whether due to carelessness or malice, leaders in the educational system are obligated to remedy the situation, or parents need to consider taking action. “We have a lot of faith in educators,” Cron adds. “We see teachers and administrators as public servants—and they are—but that doesn’t mean that they are infallible.” 

Other Helpful Resources

• Movimiento Poder movimientopoder.org
• Fully Liberated Youth (FLY) fullyliberatedyouth.org
• Transformative Justice Project cjdc.org/transformative-justice-project 
• Learn Your Rights in the Community (LYRIC) lyricommunity.org
• Office for Civil Rights ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr