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California School District Settles Harassment Suit by Gay StudentsBy CAROL POGASH, NYTimes on the Web, January 7, 2004SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 — After a five-year legal battle, a school district near San Jose has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by six gay students by paying $1.1 million and providing mandatory training for teachers, administrators and other staff members to eliminate harassment and discrimination against gay and lesbian students. The school district, Morgan Hill Unified, will also provide antiharassment programs for seventh and ninth graders. In the lawsuit, the students said teachers and administrators failed to act when classmates harassed and discriminated against them from 1991 to 1998. The settlement was signed Tuesday and announced at a news conference here called by the American Civil Liberties Union, which along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a San Francisco law firm represented the six former middle school and high school students. One plaintiff, Freddie Fuentes, 24, said at the news conference that he was in the seventh grade when he was badly beaten at a bus stop by students yelling a sexual slur. Only one attacker was disciplined. After being advised that the school could not ensure his safety, Mr. Fuentes said, he transferred schools. "I wasn't aware that what people said to me and what they were doing to me and beating me up was wrong," he said yesterday. "I thought this was how school is." The school district argued that it had an antidiscrimination policy and that the accusations were untrue. It said administrators were not guilty of "deliberate indifference." In a 3-to-0 ruling in April, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that school officials who did not take action when discrimination occurred were in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The settlement requires Morgan Hill schools to provide three and a half hours of training annually for teachers and other staff members, including bus drivers and janitors. Employees must report antigay accusations, and schools must designate a compliance coordinator to investigate every report. The Morgan Hill superintendent of schools, Carolyn McKennan, said in a statement that "the district has been against all forms of harassment before, during and after this litigation." Ms. McKennan noted that the agreement did not include any admission of wrongdoing. (Emphasis Added.) |
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