Another lawsuit challenges use of threat of mass violence law to arrest students at school • Tennessee Lookout

A Williamson County family has filed a lawsuit against the school board and the district attorney, claiming they falsely accused and prosecuted their teenage son for threatening mass violence at school.

The teenager, identified in court records as “CW,” was an 11th-grader at Independence High School last year when he was arrested in handcuffs at school, strip-searched and placed in solitary confinement in juvenile detention. He was then sent to an alternative school and referred for psychiatric treatment.

The teenager was accused by the school’s principal of raising his hand in a “Hitler salute” and saying “something about North Korea” in chemistry class, the lawsuit says, according to court documents.

At the urging of CW’s parents, the principal “failed to provide any evidence from anyone who had seen this gesture,” including the chemistry teacher, the lawsuit states.

A spokesman for Williamson County Schools declined to comment on the pending litigation; the district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

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This is at least the second legal challenge to a so-called zero-tolerance law passed by the Tennessee state legislature last year and signed into law by Governor Bill Lee, weeks after three children and three adults died at Nashville’s Covenant School.

In June, the families of a 13-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy who were arrested and expelled in separate and unrelated incidents at school jointly filed a lawsuit against Williamson County and Governor Bill Lee challenging the application of the zero-tolerance law.

The law requires districts to exclude students from school for one year if they are found to have threatened mass violence.

A threat is defined as a statement that a reasonable person could believe would cause serious bodily harm or the death of two or more people.

Activists fighting the law called it an overreaction to the mass school shootings. They also criticized the law for being so vague that it would impose responsibility on children who neither threaten to use violence nor intend to commit acts of violence – a claim also raised in the lawsuit filed on behalf of CW.

Tennessee youth activists concerned about bill to criminalize threats of mass violence

“The word ‘threat’ is not defined in Tennessee law,” the lawsuit states. “The lack of an element of intent leaves anyone who says anything that could even remotely be construed as a ‘threat’ vulnerable to criminal and other consequences.”

The lawsuit cites an unnamed court-appointed psychiatrist who interviewed the teenager in December and apparently said the law was being applied too liberally in schools.

“The psychiatrist stated that he has conducted similar interviews with 50 students since school began in fall 2023 and none of those students, including CW, should have been arrested,” the lawsuit states.

Williamson County Schools did not respond Tuesday to a request for information on the number of students who were sentenced to arrest for threatening massive violence during the 2023-2024 school year.

CW’s parents, Julie and Scott Wernert, are seeking $300,000 in damages in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Nashville.

WernertvWilliamsonCoBOE