Knox County School leaders debate proposed changes to district nondiscrimination and harassment policies

KCS attorney Gary Dupler discusses proposed revisions to district guidelines on harassment at Monday’s work session meeting. (Screenshot) 

Members of the Knox County Schools Board of Education continued to debate proposed revisions to district guidelines on discrimination and harassment at Monday’s work session.

According to documents provided by the KCS Board of Education, the district is considering changing some wording within its harassment guidelines, which have stated for years that the district does not tolerate harassment “on the basis of actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, religion, race, color or any other Federally identified protected area.” 

Board member Anne Templeton said during Monday’s school board work session meeting that the district’s law department recently recommended revising its current guidelines to state that Knox County Schools prohibits harassment “on any basis.” However, she said she believes changing the wording without any further clarification could make the policy too vague moving forward. 

“I really wanted to take ideology completely out of it and really look at how it's being done, and to make sure that we're all on board with the structure and the potential implications long-term,” she said. “One of the primary issues that I have is the phrase ‘on any basis.’ Fundamentally, it lacks no legal definition.

“Right now, if we have to defend it, we don't have any case law to be able to do that. The second reason [I have issues with the change] is that ‘on any basis’ doesn't protect teachers,” she later continued. “And fundamentally, that's a very real problem.”

Gary Dupler, the district’s law director, noted that Tennessee districts have been compelled to revise their guidelines following recent changes to the state’s teacher code of ethics. He said other districts that have changed their policies have also opted to include additional statements against “any form of discrimination harassment based upon sex, race, national origin, creed, religion, age, marital status, or disability” to make sure their guidelines encompass both state and federal rules. He recommended adding a statement similar to this in the board’s new policy to make sure it still includes students and teachers protected under Title IX.

“We did have a good conversation last week, and as a result of that conversation, I reached out to several colleagues to check and see what other attorneys were looking at on this, and I also looked at various other policies from other districts,” he said. 

“We're just [currently] trying to interpret what the [state] legislature did,” he continued. “But the language that a lot of these other counties have used is that teachers and educators will adhere to the teacher code of ethics … By saying that, whatever the teacher code of ethics says, that's what they have to abide by. Well, right now, the teacher code of ethics says ‘on any basis.’”

Board member John Butler reminded the board that the “federal law is still there,” referring to Title IX guidelines. He said the school district still needs to investigate and report instances of discrimination based on federally identified protections moving forward, regardless of the district policy’s wording. 

“There’s a number of people who are concerned about this language coming out because it speaks to a weakening of concern or care that Knox County Schools has about discrimination or harassment,” he said. “That message, whether it’s intentional or not, is something that people are feeling or seeing, especially those who have been discriminated against as a group and feel like they continue to be discriminated against.” 

The board is expected to revisit the topic at its next regular meeting on Thursday.