Rural School District Agrees to Stop Removing Gays
As appeared in The Advocate
The rural school district of Visalia, California settled a lawsuit in August by agreeing to considerable changes to prevent harassment against gays while paying one victim $130,000 who was repeatedly harassed by teachers and forced to leave his high school.
The agreement between the school district, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network (GSAN) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) requires that all teachers and administrators with direct student contact attend a three-hour training on preventing harassment against gays. Additionally, high school students will participate in a peer-to-peer program aimed at curbing harassment and violence against gays.
“Not only will this program train teachers and students, but it will end the process of forcing students out of school just because they’re gay,” says Carolyn Laub, executive director of GSAN.
The ACLU says it receives hundreds of similar cases each year nationwide ranging from students being removed from school to physical violence. “This agreement addresses the anti-gay sentiment in many non-urban schools and tackles student and teacher insensitivities,” says James Esseks, litigation director at the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. “It also gives us a starting point to take to other non-urban school districts with similar problems.”
The agreement also calls for two teachers or administrators to be trained as “compliance officers” at each high school within the district. These officers will be responsible for fielding inquiries and complaints from students.
That’s a welcome development for George Loomis the plaintiff and former high school student in Visalia. “No student should have to go through the kind of harassment I did. And parents deserve to know their children will be safe when they’re at school,” says Loomis.
