Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced today he will be investigating the Hazelwood School District's diversity, equity and inclusion practices after student Kaylee Gain was brutally assaulted by a fellow student near school grounds two weeks ago. Video of the assault went viral, shocking the conscience of the region and leading to charges against Gain’s juvenile assailant.
Gain is white. While her assailant is not being named as long as her case remains in the juvenile system, the video made clear that she, like most students in the Hazelwood district, is Black.
Bailey previously advocated for the assailant to be certified as an adult in the judicial system. He now says that it appears to him as though the school district "elevated political narrative above student safety."
Diversity, equity and inclusion, abbreviated DEI, has as of late become something of a boogieman acronym for those on the right, not unlike CRT was before. In this case, Hazelwood’s insistence on promoting DEI may well have had consequences — but only because county police balked at it and refused to cooperate.
In Bailey’s press release, he cites a "Statement of Solidarity" published by the school district in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd. One bullet point from that statement outlines the district's intention to reevaluate its relationship with school resource officers.
As the RFT reported, this led to a sticking point between the school and the police departments that provided the officers. The school asked that officers working in the school complete10 hours of DEI training. The Hazelwood, Florissant and St. Louis County police departments balked.
KSDK reported at the time that the school resource officer program was on hold at the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
According to Bailey's statement released today, the officers never came back.
What effect the presence of a school resource officer at Hazelwood East would have had on the fight that left Gain in a coma is a total unknown. The assault itself occurred off school grounds on a residential street.
A few days later, a 14-year-old Jennings middle school student was killed near his campus after being stabbed by another teenager. The school resource officer was the first on the scene. But although the officer administered first aid, Brooks died of his injuries.
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