Minneapolis school district settles complaint over South High brawl

The Minneapolis school district has pledged to quickly investigate any claims of racial and ethnic harassment in order to settle a federal complaint. The complaint alleged the district allowed a hostile environment for some students.

After a cafeteria fight between African-American and Somali-American students erupted last year at South High School, the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a complaint on behalf of both groups. It alleged the district failed to stop the harassment.

After the brawl, which sent three students and a staff member to the hospital with minor injuries, Somali students said school officials were not doing enough to ease racial tension at South High.

CAIR-Minnesota asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate. In a Sept. 30 settlement, district officials vowed to review and revise bullying policies and provide training to students and staff. They also agreed to document by June 30 the steps the district has taken to address a hostile environment based on race, color or national origin.

Ellen Longfellow, CAIR-Minnesota's civil rights attorney, hopes the settlement will help students speak up about harassment.

"Having a formal complaint procedure and having counseling — hopefully by setting up a framework, the students will feel they can do something besides fighting, and instead, they can try and work it out ahead of time," Longfellow said.

The Department of Education plans to monitor the school district.