The 'N' word

IN 1995-96, Jane Doe was a student in a ninth-grade honors English class at McClintock High School in Tempe, Arizona. The required reading included two classic literary works - Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily." Each of these works contains repeated use of the term "nigger." For example, the word appears approximately 215 times in Huckleberry Finn.

Before these works were assigned, Jane and other African American students had been subjected to racial harassment, orally and in the form of graffiti. This harassment allegedly intensified once the students completed the required reading. In particular, white peers called African American students "nigger" with increased frequency and virulence after they had read these works. When notified of the incidents of racial harassment, school district officials refused to accept the complaints or to take appropriate remedial measures regarding them.'

On 21 May 1996, Jane's mother filed suit in federal court, claiming that the school district and its officials had violated Jane's rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She sought an injunction prohibiting the school officials from "committing similar acts in the future" but did not object to such alternatives as including these works on a voluntary reading list. She also sought compensatory monetary damages, equitable relief in the form of compensatory education, and attorney's fees.

On 2 January 1997, the federal district court dismissed the suit, reasoning that the complaint did not contain specific allegations of fact necessary to show discriminatory intent. On 3 March 1997, Jane's mother filed for review to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

On 9 October 1998, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the claim concerning the assignment of the disputed works as mandatory reading; however, it reversed the dismissal of the separable claim concerning peer racial harassment in terms of a hostile racial educational environment and remanded this issue to the district court for trial.2

As for the disputed works, the appeals court concluded that the student population's First Amendment right to receive information that the school board selected for the curriculum outweighed the racial minority students' 14th Amendment and Title VI rights - save for instances of...