Schools check for compliance with
discrimination decision
By ERIC TUCKER, pressofatlanticcity.com from the Web, August 14, 2004
Atlantic City, NJ -- Several of the region's school districts will study their anti-harassment policies in the wake of a decision that school districts could be held liable for discrimination against gay and lesbian students if administrators knew of the treatment and did not take sufficient action to prevent it.
The ruling, by the director of the state Division on Civil Rights, orders the Toms River Regional School District in Ocean County to explicitly state in its
parent/student handbooks and other materials that harassment of homosexual students, or those perceived to be gay, is prohibited.
It also forces the district to create written procedures for how faculty and staff should respond to peer harassment complaints related to sexual orientation.
The district also must provide mandatory training for administrators, faculty and staff in responding to student bias reports.
The July 26 ruling from J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo overruled a decision from an administrative law judge.
Vespa-Papaleo found that the Toms River district did not do enough to prevent a male student from being harassed because of perceived homosexuality.
Deputy Attorney General James Michael said the ruling, which cites the state's existing Law Against Discrimination, is unique in that it applies standards that have been used in workplace-discrimination cases to the school setting.
"I think this is the first case that's really kind of fleshed this out in the context of schools," Michael said.
Following the standards established by the case could help school districts avoid liability if they face similar discrimination complaints, Michael said.
Thomas Monahan, a lawyer for the school district, said he is appealing the decision.
Some school administrators said they either had taken steps to see that their policies are in line with the ruling or plan to do so.
The harassment policy in the Galloway Township Public Schools district in Atlantic County also forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation, Superintendent Douglas Groff said.
"If we indeed need to refine or modify that, I don't think it would be a problem for our Board of Education," Groff said.
Told Friday of the Toms River ruling, Phil Heery, superintendent of the Egg Harbor Township School District in Atlantic County, said he wasn't sure if his district's policy explicitly barred discrimination against gays.
"We haven't had any issues that have really popped up in front of us, but obviously Toms River did have one, so that's going to make all school districts take a look" at their policies, Heery said.
The Toms River lawsuit, filed in March 1999, alleges that a male student was teased and taunted, called derogatory names for homosexuals and attacked by fellow students because he was perceived to be gay.
The alleged harassment was first reported when the student was in the sixth grade and, after stopping for a period in junior high, continued in the first weeks of his freshman year.
The student, identified in the ruling only as "L.W.," withdrew from Toms River South High School in the fall of 2000.
The district took what Monahan, a Toms River-based attorney, described as "progressive" disciplinary actions against the students accused of harassing the boy.
The offending students were counseled after each incident and some were given detention points and threatened with suspension.
Monahan said the district's policy prohibiting sexual harassment should not need to be revised to include a ban on bias against gays.
In January 1992, then-Gov. James Florio signed a bill amending the state's existing Law Against Discrimination to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Then in 2002, Gov. James E. McGreevey signed into law an anti-bullying bill that required all school districts to adopt policies preventing harassment and intimidation.
But it's not yet clear what effect the Toms River ruling will have on other school districts in the state.
"If this decision stands, it may mean that schools may need to make their policies even more specific," said Mike Yaple, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.
"They may need to take a firmer posture when it comes to disciplining students."
To e-mail Eric Tucker at The Press: ETucker@pressofac.com
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