A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which analyzed data from the U.S. Education Department, found an increase in “hostile behaviors” in K-12 public schools, including bullying, harassment, hate speech and crimes, and other types of victimization like sexual assault and rape.

The report says while controlling for key school or student characteristics, certain aspects of the school climate were more associated with bullying, including disorder in the classroom, student verbal abuse and disrespect for teachers, gang activities, and racial/ethnic tensions.

Hate crimes and physical attacks with a weapon have nearly doubled in a two-year period during 2015-2016 to 2017-2018.  The number of hate crimes based on race or color and national origins or ethnicity more than doubled in those years.

And while reports of rapes or attempted rapes stayed consistent for those years, sexual assaults other than rape saw an increase of 17%.  

Also, physical attacks with weapons more than doubled from more than 5,000 reported in 2015 - 2016 to 10,472 reported in 2017-2018, while threats of attacks with weapons grew.

According to the report, nearly every school uses a program or practices to address the hostile behaviors – varying from training for students, teachers, and staff to mental health services, and disciplinary actions. The schools which offered these programs had slightly less bullying that occurred regularly than schools that didn’t.

While complaints filed with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights declined by 9% in 2018-2019 and 15% in 2019-2020, civil rights experts warn that in recent years, there has been a reluctance to file complaints as students have lost confidence in the Office of Civil Rights ability to address violations in schools.

During President Donald Trump's term in office, his administration rescinded a number of Obama-era school civil rights policies, cut back rules supporting transgender students and combating sexual harassment. The move was criticized by civil rights and education groups at the time.

A statement from the Education Department said that the Biden administration is “fully committed to …vigorous enforcement of federal civil rights laws in our nation’s schools.”

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