A Texas Student was Kneed in the Face by a School Cop: Her Civil Rights Case is One of Thousands That May Never Be Resolved
Cases involving race, sex and LGBTQ students most likely to languish, as administration drives investigations around antisemitism, transgender issues.
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After a campus police officer grabbed student Ja鈥橪iyah Celestine by the hair and kneed her in the face, she filed a federal civil rights complaint that alleged persistent racial discrimination against Black teens at her Texas high school.聽
But , brought by the 18-year-old in late October with the Education Department鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights, may never get investigated.聽
That鈥檚 because it鈥檚 one of thousands of federal civil rights complaints and investigations against school districts nationally 鈥 particularly those alleging sexual misconduct or racism 鈥 that advocates say have been left to languish by the Trump administration with little hope for resolution. As the president and Secretary Linda McMahon seek to dismantle the Education Department 鈥 with its civil rights office among the hardest hit by layoffs 鈥 attorneys say students like Celestine have lost one of their few avenues for relief.
鈥淲hen we filed the complaint on Oct. 29, we knew the election was a few days out and we knew this could very well be the outcome,鈥 said Andrew Hairston, the director of the Education Justice Project at the nonprofit Texas Appleseed, who is representing Celestine in her complaint against the Beaumont Independent School District and its police department. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult for Black children, in particular, who face the harms of school police, to seek any vindication of their rights.鈥
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, civil rights attorneys at the Education Department have faced a whirlwind of directives and layoffs, throwing into uncertainty more than 12,000 civil rights investigations that stemmed from complaints by students, parents and their advocates. The Education Department and the Beaumont school district didn鈥檛 respond to requests for comment.
After investigations nationwide were paused following Trump鈥檚 Jan. 20 inauguration, the Education Department鈥檚 staff was cut roughly in half through layoffs of more than 1,300 employees, buyouts and early retirements. When the department announced mass firings earlier this month, at least 243 civil rights office staffers were cut. Meanwhile, seven of the 12 Office for Civil Rights regional offices were shuttered, including those in Philadelphia and Dallas, Texas, where Celestine鈥檚 complaint was filed.
It鈥檚 a situation that civil rights advocates say has left the Education Department unequipped to carry out its functions mandated by Congress. In filed March 14, advocates and families accused the Trump administration of eviscerating students鈥 access to federal civil rights remedies, with particular harm to students of color, female students and LGBTQ+ youth. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has prioritized cases tied to antisemitism complaints and has that afford rights and protections to transgender students.
The lawsuit alleges the changes undermine the civil rights office鈥檚 ability to process and investigate complaints and asked a judge to order that its staffing be restored to levels that allow complaints from the public to be investigated 鈥減romptly and equitably.鈥 Staffing changes were 鈥渁rbitrary and capricious鈥 the lawsuit charges, because Trump administration officials 鈥渄id not articulate a reasoned basis for their decision to sabotage鈥 the Office for Civil Rights.
鈥淭he fact that the federal government is kind of both eliminating these offices and then weaponizing what’s left of them to advance a very narrow definition of discrimination is not just troubling and sad, it鈥檚 also fundamentally antithetical to what democratic governance and law enforcement should look like,鈥 said Johnathan Smith, the chief of staff and general counsel at the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law.
Smith represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Education Department and McMahon. They include Nikki Carter, a Black mother of three, who alleges she was barred from her children鈥檚 Alabama schools in retaliation for her work as an advocate for children with disabilities. A second parent, identified only as A.W., charges they had to remove their child from school for safety reasons after the student was sexually assaulted and harassed by a classmate and the school did not adequately respond. Both parents are members of the , a nonprofit focused on the civil rights of children with disabilities.
Carter’s complaint was filed in September 2022 and A.W.’s in October 2023.
鈥楥ommunicating into a black hole鈥
It was spring 2024 when Celestine got into a fight and campus police in Beaumont were called to the scene.
Though the civil rights complaint submitted to the Education Department by the nonprofit Texas Appleseed doesn鈥檛 seek to absolve Celestine for her role in the fight, it takes aim at what happened next: A police use-of-force incident captured on video.
鈥淩esponding after the fight occurred鈥 when the teenager was sitting passively on the floor, the complaint states, the officer with the school district police department pepper-sprayed Celestine, grabbed her by the hair and kneed her in the face.
鈥淪uch excessive force caused great harm鈥 and was just the first form of punishment Celestine received for the fight, the complaint alleges. She was also suspended from school, placed in an alternative education program and required to complete community service 鈥 鈥漜onsequences that exceeded the nature of the incident in question,鈥 it argues.
鈥淭his complaint does not ignore the significance of an offense such as in-school fighting,鈥 Texas Appleseed鈥檚 Hairston wrote to federal investigators. But the altercation that Celestine was involved in 鈥渄id not warrant the abuse she was subjected to.鈥
The issue at Beaumont is bigger than Celestine and a campus fight, Texas Appleseed contends. It 鈥渞epresents a salient example of how the school-to-prison pipeline operates,鈥 according to the complaint, and highlights how Black students at the district and nationally are disproportionately subjected to law enforcement referrals in schools.
The 12,000 civil rights investigations that were pending as of Jan. 14 ahead of Trump鈥檚 inauguration were listed in that hasn鈥檛 been updated since. Federal civil rights investigations聽routinely take years to resolve and the oldest pending complaint at the time, alleging sex-based discrimination in athletics against an Oklahoma school district was opened in 2007.
After Trump鈥檚 swearing-in, the Education Department paused all investigations in its civil rights office. In February, the agency ended the pause on investigations focused solely on disability-based discrimination, and then lifted the hold on sex- and race-based complaints on March 6 鈥 just a week before the 243 OCR staffers were fired. At least 178 attorneys in the civil rights division and dozens of equal opportunity specialists were eliminated.
The Dallas regional office was among those shut down altogether, possibly relegating Celestine鈥檚 case and thousands more to oblivion. Smith with the National Center for Youth Law said he鈥檚 heard from fired Education Department employees who鈥檝e lost access to their email accounts and all ability to communicate with families and attorneys about pending complaints.
鈥淯nless someone is actually going to go into their email accounts and pull up those emails, those communications are lost,鈥 Smith said. As a result, parents and school officials who are communicating with Education Department officials about pending cases are 鈥渓iterally communicating into a black hole because there鈥檚 no way for that information to go anywhere.鈥
Even if pending cases are transferred to other regional offices, Smith said, they should be considered dead on arrival.
鈥淚 just don鈥檛 see how anyone can believe that there鈥檚 going to be any real process or consideration of those complaints at this point,鈥 Smith said.
鈥楻einterpreting what is racial discrimination鈥
While certain cases appear to be jettisoned, fired Education Department staffers who spoke to The 74 and others allege the department鈥檚 civil rights division has been weaponized to pursue politically motivated investigations.
Among them is for opening a gender-neutral bathroom at one of its high schools. Last week, the Office for Civil Rights found the state of Maine violated Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination, for allowing transgender student athletes to participate on girls鈥 sports teams.
As the Trump administration targets diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at schools and colleges, the Education Department against the Ithaca, New York, school district, charging a Students of Color United Summit designed to 鈥減rovide a safe space鈥 and 鈥渦plift students of color鈥 was discriminatory against white students.
Harold Jordan, the nationwide education equity coordinator at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, accused the Trump administration of launching 鈥渄irected investigations鈥 to advance political agendas 鈥渂ased on something they read in the newspaper鈥 rather than from complaints filed by students attending those schools.
鈥淭his department is clearly fixated on race and reinterpreting what is racial discrimination,鈥 Jordan said. Ideological beliefs around racial discrimination and transgender students鈥 rights, he said 鈥渟eem to have spilled over into how they see civil rights enforcement.鈥
Jordan said the ACLU represents students in about 20 pending federal civil rights complaints nationally, yet 鈥渘obody is hearing anything鈥 from the civil rights office about the status of those investigations. Among the complaints is an allegation by seven students that Pennsylvania鈥檚 Central Bucks School District against LGBTQ+ students, particularly those who are transgender and nonbinary.
鈥淕iven their diatribes about gender ideology and stuff, I suspect that they鈥檙e not going to be terribly sympathetic,鈥 Jordan said. 鈥淏ut we ultimately don鈥檛 know, and ultimately they鈥檙e supposed to follow the law and enforce the law.鈥
Meanwhile, at least one civil rights complainant bowed out before the Trump administration could even weigh in, said Katie McKay, an attorney at the Brooklyn law firm C.A. Goldberg where she works on cases involving sexual discrimination, harassment and assault at K-12 schools and colleges. McKay said a college student whose sexual assault case 鈥渉ad been open since Obama was in office,鈥 decided to voluntarily close the complaint after Trump was elected for a second term 鈥渂ecause of concerns that this administration would mishandle the case.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 frustrating and sad to see that this person has been sitting with this unresolved issue for like a decade and then it’s kind of this non-resolution,鈥 McKay said. The decision to terminate the complaint was made in part on against the president himself. In 2023, a for sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996.聽
鈥淭here鈥檚 this fear that those values were going to be applied to the case,鈥 McKay said. 鈥淐losing out the case at least created a sense of closure on their own terms rather than letting this administration speak for them.鈥
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