BY BRIAN CHASE,
SENIOR STAFF ATTORNEY

LGBT kids in our schools often face pervasive bullying, harassment, ridicule, and abuse. A recent survey taken by the California Safe Schools Coalition indicates that well over 200,000 students in California are harassed every year based on sexual orientation.

Recent events at Apple Valley High School in the Inland Empire demonstrate the toxic environment that can fester in school hallways when homophobia is left unchecked. In 2007, the Apple Valley High School Gay Straight Alliance organized a Day of Silence to draw attention to anti-gay attitudes on campus. Signs announcing the event were defaced, and someone posted a sign for a mock “Hetrosexual [sic] Day” to ridicule LGBT students.

There were many anti-gay incidents at Apple Valley High during the 2007 Day of Silence, but the most obnoxious was the on-campus sale of T-shirts saying “F.A.G. (Friends Against Gays).” Students wore the offensive shirts for hours before being told to remove them by administrators, and students report that school administrators never punished the students who sold the shirts.

Shawn Irvin, a student at Apple Valley, contacted Lambda Legal for help. Lambda Legal wrote to the school, pointing out that under the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 school officials have an “affirmative obligation to combat racism, sexism, and other forms of bias, and a responsibility to provide equal educational opportunity.”

School administrators who fail to respond to anti-LGBT harassment can be sued. In Flores v. Morgan Hill the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applied the anti-discrimination provisions of California education law to mean that school districts may be held liable to victims of anti-gay harassment if they fail to institute appropriate anti-harassment training for students, faculty, and administration or fail to appropriately respond to anti-gay abuse. In that case, the school district ultimately spent nearly $1.2 million to resolve claims brought by student victims of anti-gay harassment.

It looks like Apple Valley High School got the message. After the 2008 day of silence, Shawn wrote to us saying “the Day of Silence was a huge success. We had 60+ students participate. We turned in three incident reports and all of them were handled as soon as we handed them in. ... It was like the twilight zone, it was like it wasn't even the same school. Thank you for all of your help.”

Some school administrators and anti-LGBT activists in California, however, are attempting to challenge or weaken the protections California law offers for LGBT students. Lambda Legal currently represents Megan Donovan and Joey Ramelli, who dropped out of Poway High School following years of anti-gay harassment. A jury awarded Megan and Joey $300,000, holding that school administrators were “deliberately indifferent” to the harassment. The school is appealing the decision and arguing, in part, that the trial court erred because it told the jury that California law provides that school administrators have an affirmative duty to fight bias. We disagreed—the court simply explained the law to the jury, just as it should. The appeal was argued in San Diego on July 19.

In another lawsuit, a group calling itself the “California Education Committee” is seeking to overturn civil rights protections for LGBT students. These anti-LGBT activists make the ridiculous claim that the anti-discrimination laws might mean that a teacher who “assumes the existence of a mother and father in a family relationship” could be sued for anti-gay discrimination.

Such silly arguments cannot mask the true intent of anti-LGBT activists which is to rob kids like Shawn, Joey, and Megan of the safeguards they need to feel safe and be protected in school. As LGBT adults and allies, we need to do everything we can to make sure those protections are supported.