Message from:
The Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS, PO Box 2345, Malta, NY 12020

Email to:SARATOGANY@aol.com

The Real or Perceived Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Student Protection Project

FYI
SPENCER CO HS
BOX 849
TAYLORSVILLE, KY 40071-0849
Phone:(502)477-2230

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There are 2 stories from yesterday's Louisville Courier-Journal.

The first, is that a same-sex harassment suit was upheld. The second, rather disturbing, has to do with why the Courier-Journal is neglecting to report that the harassment had to do with the student's perceived lesbianism.

David Williams, who sent the story, has written the introdcutory comments. --
Scott

(From David Williams)

From the following story published in the Louisville Courier-Journal on Fri., Nov. 10, you would never guess that the main reason the victim was harassed was because she was perceived to be a lesbian. In reading this story, you would have no idea that her perceived homosexuality was the prime motivation behind the sexual harassment she endured. You have to go all the way down to the 23rd paragraph before you find any mention of the word "gay," and then you still wouldn't guess that her perceived lesbianism was at the center of the entire case.

A previous Courier-Journal article on this case from two or three years ago clearly noted that she was victimized because of her perceived homosexuality, but this time the Courier-Journal has chosen to obscure that pertinent aspect of the story.

This is a flagrant coverup of a very important issue that continues to be a problem in schools not just in Kentucky, but nationwide. There are numerous similar lawsuits now pending, including the one in Somerset. But the Courier-Journal has rarely mentioned the problem in its news reporting and never faced it in its editorials. I find its approach to the subject not simply appalling, but frightening. At the very least it's a disservice to all those struggling gay and lesbian students who continue to be harassed with near impunity in Kentucky's schools.

--David Williams, Editor
The Letter
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Louisville Courier-Journal 11/10/00
525 W. Broadway,Louisville,KY,40202
(Fax 502-582-4075, print run 238,500)
(E-MAIL: cjletter@louisvil.gannett.com )

SEXUAL HARASSMENT VERDICT IS UPHELD -- SPENCER COUNTY CASES MESSAGE: SCHOOLS MUST ACT

By Deborah Yetter, The Courier-Journal

In a case that lawyers said sends a forceful message to school officials nationwide, a federal appeals court has upheld a $220,000 verdict awarded to a Spencer County girl who was sexually harassed and assaulted throughout middle and high school.

The girl said that despite her repeated complaints, Spencer County school officials did nothing to stop the harassment and attacks, which began in the sixth grade. Her lawyer said school officials throughout the country should heed this week's ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"It tells superintendents within the 6th Circuit and puts on notice superintendents throughout the United States that they have got to do more than tell kids to shut up," said Oliver H. Barber Jr., the lawyer for Alma McGowen, the former Spencer County student.

The decision has national significance because it further defines, under a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, when courts may find school officials at fault for failing to act effectively against sexual harassment of students, said Doris Ng, a staff lawyer for Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based public-interest law firm for women and girls.

"The court really makes it clear that if you do something and it doesn't work, you need to do something else," Ng said. "That's where the school system failed -- they didn't take stronger measures to try to make it stop."

Evidence at the trial showed that Spencer County school officials did nothing to stop the harassment other than to talk to the culprits, the appeals court said. It said school officials were unable to document any action they took to deal with the harassment.

McGowen, now 19 and a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., said she is grateful the appeals court affirmed the verdict.

"That's a wonderful feeling," she said.

But McGowen said she still believes harassment is a significant problem for children in school and hopes her case means some help for them.

"What bothers me is that I know there are kids dealing with the same thing," she said. "I would like to reach out to them and let them know they are not alone."

Robert Chenoweth, a lawyer for the Spencer County School Board, said yesterday he plans to meet with the board to discuss the ruling and members have not decided whether to appeal it. He said he believes school officials acted appropriately.

Barber filed suit in U.S. District Court in Louisville under federal Title IX law that requires schools to provide equal education opportunities for students of both genders. The lawsuit said McGowen, who left high school at 15 to be home-schooled, was deprived of her right to public education.

The lawsuit, filed in 1996 against the Spencer County Board of Education, was one of the first of its kind in the country, and the legal theory has since been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a similar sexual-harassment case out of Georgia.

Barber said that, given that Supreme Court ruling last year, he sees few options for Spencer County to appeal.

"I cannot imagine that they will take this to the Supreme Court," Barber said. "I think the 6th Circuit shut the door on them."

The 6th Circuit includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan and Ohio.

Barber said he thinks the ruling is a victory for students subjected to harassment. "For an old civil-rights lawyer, this is as good as it gets," he said.

Brad Hughes, a spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, said the association has stressed for the past several years that school officials must have an effective policy and follow it when students allege sexual harassment. In addition to taking effective steps to stop harassment, officials must document it, he said.

"It doesn't matter if you did it if you can't document it," he said.

Chenoweth, the lawyer for Spencer County, declined to discuss whether Spencer County has such a policy.

"I'm not going to go into that," he said. "The school system was acting appropriately."

In McGowen's case, students called her names, touched her, struck her and asked her for sex on a regular basis, said the Nov. 6 order and opinion by a three-member appeals panel. Once a student stabbed her in the hand with a pencil; another time, when McGowen was in the seventh grade, a group of students held her and pulled off her blouse while a boy began to take of his pants and threatened to rape her, the opinion said.

The boy who stabbed her with the pencil boasted to her later that school officials talked to him but he didn't get in trouble because he was the son of a school board member, the opinion said. Another student, the school principal's nephew, confronted McGowen in front of other students and demanded to know if she was "gay."

On one occasion, an assistant principal advised McGowen that boys were flirting with her because she was cute and said she should "Be friendly," the opinion said.

McGowen, whose mother is a German immigrant, left school at age 15 after a boy told her he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and he planned to burn her house down because "all Germans should be burned and sent to hell." By then she had been diagnosed with depression, the opinion said.

McGowen and her mother, Barbara Ihl Erfurth, had complained in person and in writing but said the harassment and assaults only intensified over the years.

Ng said the 6th Circuit ruling more clearly defines the standard of "deliberate indifference" that plaintiffs must meet to win such cases.

To win, McGowen had to show school officials knew there was a likelihood she would be harmed by the harassment yet still failed to act effectively to stop it, Ng said.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that threshold in the 1999 case from Georgia in which the court ruled a 10-year-old girl who had been sexually harassed by a fifth-grade classmate was entitled to sue the school board under Title IX.

McGowen and her mother said they both hope the ordeal is finally over.

McGowen said her middle and high school years were hellish and she's still working to get over the harassment and assaults by so many schoolmates and the feeling she somehow was to blame.

"I'm happy," she said. "But there's still this nagging doubt in my mind."

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This message has been distributed as a free informational service for the expressed interest of non-profit research and educational purposes only.

PRIMER WEBSITES

Unity Through Diversity (Long Island)
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Castro/3212/
GLSEN --- Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network
www.glsen.org
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
www.lambdalegal.org
Safe Schools Coalition
www.safeschoolscoalition.org
The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project Home Page
www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
www.pflag.org
Empire State (NY) Pride Agenda
www.prideagenda.org
GLAAD
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
www.glaad.org
LIGALY Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth
http://www.ligaly.com/

"The Real or Perceived Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgendered Student Protection Project"
("Being safe at school should not be a radical concept".. Jamie Nabozny)

A project of:
Coalition for Safer Schools of New York State

John Myers
Director of Operations and Programs
PO Box 2345
Malta, NY 12020
(518) 587-0176

Email:saratogany@aol.com

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