School administrators agreed this week to take steps to protect a 14-year-old student at an upstate New York high school from the escalating harassment he’s faced for the past two years.
But the agreement came only after a lawsuit was filed against the school by New York Civil Liberties Union.
Jacob, a 14-year-old student at Gregory B Jarvis Junior/Senior High School in Mohawk, NY, endured escalating harassment the past two years for his sexual orientation and for not conforming to masculine stereotypes, according to a statement released today by NYCLU.
NYCLU filed suit against the school district last week.
The lawsuit says that the student, who is identified only by his first name, suffered near-constant verbal assault from other students at the school. His personal property has been defaced and broken, and he was regularly pushed and had things thrown at him, according to the lawsuit. This past year, a student knocked Jacob down the stairs and sprained his ankle. Another student brought a knife to school and threatened to kill him.
“We are pleased the school district has finally recognized that it must act to protect our client’s safety, but this agreement is just a first step,” said Donna Lieberman, NYCLU executive director in a statement.
After lawsuit, NY school district agrees to step in against bullying [contd.]
The agreement, approved by a federal judge, does not end the lawsuit, according to NYCLU, but it means that the school district will meet the NYCLU’s demands for emergency relief to provide for the student’s safety.
“We will pursue our lawsuit until the Mohawk Central School District makes the long-term solutions necessary to ensure that all students are safe at school and treated with the dignity and respect they deserve,” Lieberman said.
After the suit was filed by NYCLU on August 19, a local newspaper, Utica Observer Dispatch talked to residents of the village that has about 2,500 residents.
One of them Ed Backus, 21, a 2006 graduate of the high school, told the paper that getting picked on for “being different” comes with the territory. He said everyone knows everyone in the small school district.
“A majority of Mohawk -- especially the class I graduated with -- we hunt, we fish, we drive trucks. If you're into designer clothes, you’re going to get picked on,” Backus told the News Dispatch. “I don’t think the school should have to pay because he decided to be gay.”
Mary Hempel, a seventh grade math at the school Jacob attends, told the paper that she wouldn't be surprised if students were harassing Jacob because some people at the school “aren't very accepting.”
Hemple has a sticker on her classroom window at the school that advertises the space as a “safe station” for students who feel threatened at school.
She told the Observer Dispatch that she would have done her best to help him if she had known that one of her former students was gay and was being harassed at school.
Hempel said that Jacob’s situation hits especially close to home because her son Aric Barnett, who graduated from Mohawk schools in 2006, is also openly gay.
Barnett started the Gay Straight Alliance while he attended the school. In 2006, he battled with the Mohawk Board of Education, which allowed the group to meet at the school but refused to recognize the club because its purpose was non-curricular, the Observer Dispatch reports.
In its statement NYCLU says Mohawk Central School District was repeatedly made aware of the abuse that Jacob faced. But district officials – including the superintendent and school principal – were indifferent, according to NYCLU. They failed to formerly investigate the harassment, discipline students, or even inform Jacob and his parents of their rights to file complaints under the school’s grievance procedures.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 19 in US District Court for the Northern District of New York, maintains that the school district violated Jacob’s rights under the 14th Amendment; Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, and state human rights and civil rights laws.
The agreement that was announced today is under seal, according to NYCLU, meaning its specifics cannot be disclosed.
Source: In Response to NYCLU Lawsuit, Herkimer Co. School District Agrees to Measures to Protect Gay Youth from Harassment | NYCLU