Chicago Public Schools is suspending its partnership with the Young Chicago Authors program over concerns of how the organization handled allegations of sexual assault, the school district announced Friday.
The Chicago Public Schools inspector general’s office is investigating the allegations against the group to determine whether any students of the district were harmed, said the department’s chief, Will Fletcher.
The inspector general’s office was trying to “ensure that any allegations of sexual misconduct or abuse were appropriately reported,” Fletcher added.
“The district is deeply concerned by these troubling allegations and we are contacting principals, families and students who have been involved with the program to make them aware of the allegations and available support,” Chicago Public Schools told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “The district is not aware of any prior complaints involving the program but given the nature of allegations, we are suspending our partnership with the organization.”
Rebecca Hunter, who recently resigned as the executive director of the group, first heard of the allegations during the summer of 2013, when a group of poets formed a “safety council” to identify “sexual predators” in their community, she said. One name on the list was allegedly an artist under contract with Young Chicago Authors.
The group decided not to renew the artist’s contract in September 2013. However, the person in question continued to work at other youth programs. Young Chicago Authors decided not to out the artist publicly on the advice of counsel, Hunter said.
“The approach was very much kind of working internally to mitigate, but that’s not enough,” Hunter added. “And so, when you’re not out there publicly protesting a person, that can be experienced as a culture of silence, for sure.”
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The group “didn’t do enough community convening and town halls and listening sessions with people to just kind of process this [person’s] harm and come together to heal together,” she added.
Young Chicago Authors announced Thursday that the contract of Kevin Coval, the group’s longtime artistic director, had ended.
