The investigation began with a racist slur and a punch to the face. A white high school student at California’s Lodi Unified School District spat a racial epithet at a black classmate, who lashed out with his fists in the school hallway the next morning.

Although OCR didn’t rule in the black student’s favor, it launched a compliance review spanning several years, reaching a settlement with the district in 2016 to address “concerns that it disciplines African-American students more harshly than white students.”