What Does It Take?

You would think that school administrators would know the law. There have been enough incidents in the news about law suits and the U.S. Department of Education clamping down on bullying and harassing of LGBT students that should have sunk into their heads by now.

SPLC files suit to stop anti-LGBT harassment by students and faculty in Mississippi’s Moss Point School District
SPLC
December 17, 2013

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit in federal court today to stop pervasive anti-LGBT bullying and harassment committed by students – and even faculty members and administrators – within the schools of Mississippi’s Moss Point School District.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Destin Holmes, a district student who endured such severe harassment she was eventually driven out of school. She temporarily left the district in March 2012 to be homeschooled after the then-principal at Magnolia Junior High School called her a “pathetic fool” and told her, “I don’t want a dyke in this school.”
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“We are disappointed that the district fails to see the serious harm its deliberate inaction causes its students,” said Anjali Nair, SPLC staff attorney. “District officials who are entrusted with the safety and education of all students not only ignored, dismissed and even blamed victims for the abusive behavior of faculty and other students, they also participated in discriminatory acts.”

During her time at Magnolia Junior High School, students and district staff called Destin slurs such as “it,” “freak” and “he-she.” Destin heard such insults as many as 20 times a day. She also was denied access to the girls’ restroom by a teacher. Another teacher even refused to allow her to participate in a classroom activity where teams were divided by gender because Destin – according to the teacher – was an “in-between it.”

So now the school district is going to spend thousands of dollars or more to defend an indefensible position. The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights even has a letter that they sent out to all schools in the U.S. warning them of possible violation various sections of the Civil Rights Act.

In addition, earlier in the year the OCR reached an agreement with Arcadia, California, School District over sex discrimination and bullying. In the agreement they state in part,

    In recent years, the Justice Department and the Department of Education resolved a number of cases involving gender-based harassment in public schools. In 2012, the departments entered into a consent decree addressing harassment against students who do not conform to gender stereotypes in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, Minn. In 2011, the departments entered into an agreement with the Tehachapi Unified School District, Calif., to resolve a similar complaint of harassment against a gay student who did not conform to gender stereotypes.

But that didn’t stop the Moss Point School District from allowing the harassment of the student to continue, so now they are going to court.

The Arcadia Unified School District was the only district that ignored the bullying and harassment, according to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division there has been many other cases against school districts,

On January 14, 2010, in the Northern District of New York, the Section moved to intervene in J.L. v. Mohawk Central School District. The lawsuit was filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of J.L., a 15-year-old student in the District. J.L. alleged that the District violated state and federal laws including the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, both of which prohibit discrimination based on sex, including discrimination based on failure to conform to gender stereotypes.

The plaintiff was awarded $50,000 and $75,000 in lawyer fees.

In 2009 the Civil Rights Division filed an amicus brief on behalf of a plaintiff in a court case who said that plaintiff was being harassed because he was gay,

In April 2009, Plaintiff filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York alleging, inter alia, that the Indian River Central School District, its Board of Education, and eight of its employees violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972…

And it isn’t just the Obama administration that are pursuing discrimination cases against school districts, in the case of Lovins and United States v. Pleasant Hill Public School District the Civil Rights Division website said,

The Section intervened in this same-sex peer harassment case alleging the school district violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to respond appropriately to harassment of a student on the basis of sex. Specifically, the Section alleged in our complaint-in-intervention : from the eighth grade through the eleventh grade, Jeremy Lovins was subjected to harassment on the basis of sex (ostensibly because other students believed he was gay); Jeremy and his parents repeatedly informed school officials of the harassment but the harassment continued; and Jeremy was eventually subjected to an assault and forced to leave school because of the harassment. On July 31, 2000, the Court entered a consent decree settling the case.

Jeremy was awarded $72,500 in that case.

So there is strong prescient against the Mississippi’s Moss Point School District.