Legal Guidance on Students' Rights

Since the 2016 presidential election, hate crimes and other racial and religious harassment are on the rise, and our schools have not been insulated. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) surveyed over 10,000 educators in America’s schools to assess students’ experiences of bullying, hate, and harassment in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Eight out of ten educators reported “heightened anxiety on the part of marginalized students, including immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, and LGBT students.” Educators “made a point of saying that what is happening now is something new . . . . an unleashing of a spirit of hatred they had not seen before.”

Given all this, educators’ role in combating hate, intolerance, and discrimination is as difficult and important as ever.

NEA’s guidance on students’ rights:

• Provides educators with an understanding of current laws that protect students from racial, religious, and national origin harassment;
• Provides a model policy that school districts should adopt to ensure those protections are fully enforced;
• Provides responses to Frequently Asked Questions that may be useful in organizing around these issues; and
• Provides a list of other resources for protecting students’ rights.