He taught his school a lesson
Tormented in classrooms and hallways, gay student Jamie Nabozny sued his Wisconsin school for equal protection -- and won

BY JOHN TANASYCHUK, Free Press Staff Writer

Jamie Nabozny is only 21. But already, he can look back and say he dared to do what no other man has done.

Nabozny sued his Ashland, Wisc., high school in federal court. Three administrators were found liable for not protecting him from years of verbal and physical abuse. He was abused for being gay.

During those years, Nabozny was urinated on. Once, a boy pretended to rape him in a summer school class. Another time, he was kicked unconscious and several days later had to have surgery for internal bleeding. Four times he tried to kill himself. Eventually, he had to leave Ashland and his parents' home to attend school where he could be safe.

"I was numb most of the time and I had to be numb to make it through," he says.

Last year, Nabozny won a $900,000 settlement following a trial that he hopes will end the kind of misery he suffered when Ashland Middle and High School administrators failed to protect him. On Friday, Nabozny will tell his story at a Detroit reception for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Lambda -- which represented Nabozny in the trial -- has been working since 1973 to achieve full civil rights for gay men and lesbians through litigation, public policy work and education.

In Nabozny's case, the U.S. Court of Appeals applied the Equal Protection Clause to sexual orientation in schools. It requires that the state "treat each person with equal regard, as having equal worth, regardless of his or her status."

"We are unable to garner any rational basis for permitting one student to assault another based on the victim's sexual orientation," the court said.

Nabozny's win is a clear precedent for gay and lesbian students across the country.

"The vast majority of school districts do not protect lesbian, gay or bisexual students in their policies under the rubric of sexual orientation," says Frank Colasonti Jr., a counselor in the Birmingham school district and founder of the Detroit chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network (GLSTN). "What many administrators fail to know is that they, as adults, are responsible to protect every single child for whatever reason within their building and that's what the Jamie Nabozny case is all about."

Last month, GLSTN released a study based on surveys of 304 administrators and educators in the five-county area. The study -- called "Bruised Bodies, Bruised Spirits" -- made 21 recommendations to improve schools, including adding positive perspectives on sexual orientation to the curriculum.

In Michigan, says Colasonti, just 5 percent of public school boards specifically protect students against discrimination based on sexual orientation. At independent and parochial schools, it's just one-half of 1 percent.

"What I do fear," says Colasonti, "is that there will need to be a lawsuit within the state of Michigan similar to Jamie Nabozny's for school districts to take action."

No closet for him

Unlike many children who discover they are gay, Jamie Nabozny told his family and friends when he was 11 years old.

Unusual, but not uncommon.

"I was slightly more effeminate than everybody else," Nabozny says in an interview from his home in St. Paul, Minn. "I wasn't talking about dating girls like everybody else. I got labeled for a lot of the things that are typical in a small, redneck community that are not considered male -- getting good grades, being polite. And I was a good target because I wouldn't talk back."

Nabozny describes Ashland as a city with 9,000 people, where most folks work for one of two industries: making toilet paper or making the machines to make toilet paper. Not a good place for a gay kid, he says.

He was fortunate in many ways be cause he grew up knowing a favorite uncle was gay and lived with a long-term partner. His uncle managed a hotel and restaurant and drove a Cadillac.

"I remember telling my grandmother," says Nabozny. "I remember the word 'homosexual' and that meant they lived together and they loved each other."

When he told his grandmother he was gay, she said: "The only reason you want to be a homosexual is so you can have a nice car when you're big."

Despite his family's support, school was hell. Harassment was an hourly occurrence. He couldn't walk from one class to another without being tripped or spit on.

There were several violent episodes. The first happened during summer school between seventh and eighth grades when the teacher was out of the room. A boy started whispering: "You're so cute, we want to go out with you."

Other boys touched his buttocks and one of them pushed him down to the floor and pretended to rape him. The other kids stood around and laughed until Nabozny threw him off.

When he went to the principal's office for help, she was upset that he hadn't made an appointment. She said that if he was going to be openly gay, then he should expect such treatment. None of the perpetrators were ever punished.

Another time, Nabozny was sitting near the library when a group of boys approached him. One of them kicked him and his books fell out of his hands. As Nabozny bent down to pick them up, he was kicked again and he blacked out. A few days later, he was rushed to the hospital because he was in so much pain. Surgery revealed that he was suffering from internal bleeding.

Time after time, school administrators ignored his requests for protection.

When he was 16, Nabozny ran away. He told his parents that they wouldn't see him until he turned 18. His parents pleaded with him to speak with a guidance counselor. The counselor told them to let Nabozny go.

He moved to St. Paul and lived with a deacon and his partner who belonged to the Metropolitan Community Church, an international gay and lesbian religious denomination. Nabozny worked at a photocopy store and went to school.

"It was scary," says his mother, Carol Nabozny. "The hardest thing we've ever had to do as parents was to let him go. He was going there to be safe and this was a city of how many thousands of people? Ashland had 9,000. He wasn't street smart. He wasn't into drugs or drinking. But we had to. It was either that or he'd be gone on his own. He refused to go to school here anymore and I don't blame him."

First case dismissed

Nabozny first thought about taking legal action at the suggestion of an attorney and crime victims advocate.

"I was very apprehensive at first," he says. "I just made it out alive" from high school.

He retained his first lawyer Oct. 13, 1993, the day before his 18th birthday. A Madison, Wisc., federal district court dismissed his case without a hearing. Lambda took the case on appeal and last July, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal court in the nation ever to address liability for anti-gay violence in schools.

The court noted that gay people "are an identifiable minority" and that "it does seem dubious to suggest that someone would choose to be homosexual, absent some genetic predisposition, given the considerable discrimination leveled against homosexuals." The case then went to trial.

After a two-day federal jury trial in Eau Claire, Wisc., in November, seven jurors unanimously agreed that school principals had failed Nabozny by closing their eyes to the four years of brutal abuse he suffered from classmates.

The two sides agreed on the $900,000 settlement.

Fallout has already been felt in Michigan, says Patricia Logue, managing attorney for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund's Midwest Regional Office. Logue assisted Rudy Serra, lawyer for Joshua Winowiecki, an Allen Park high school student who was harassed by students and tried to change the district's policies.

Logue says Winowiecki's attorney made sure school officials were aware of the Nabozny decision and said the knowledge helped avoid a civil lawsuit. The district eventually adopted an anti-harassment policy, though it did not specifically include sexual orientation as a protected category.

In the Oakland County Intermediate School District, sexual diversity training sessions for health educators and counselors will be offered starting in April. The district worked with GLSTN; Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; and Affirmations, the Ferndale-based gay community center, in developing the program.

"I think it's really opening people's eyes that gay and lesbian students are in our schools," says Diane Waggoner, a health education consultant with the Oakland County district and the county health division. "Many times, from remarks we hear . . . I think people conveniently close their eyes."

During Nabozny's trial, the school district's lawyer tried to convince the jury that the anti-gay harassment that he experienced, such as repeated taunts of "faggot," wasn't as bad as other, racially based, epithets.

"Obviously the jury didn't buy that," says Logue. "But it captured for us that educators weren't equating anti-gay abuse with protecting students."

Justin King, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Boards, doesn't believe Michigan school officials would make the same mistake as Ashland administrators who failed to address Nabozny's pleas for help.

"That's totally repulsive to anyone running a school system in this state --public or private. We don't need a Wisconsin case to wake anyone up," says King. "Clearly that's wrong -- patently wrong. Sometimes school districts are found not liable when circumstances weren't under their control, but once it's been brought to their attention and they ignore it, that's when they get in trouble."

King's group teaches a sexual harassment program for the Michigan Council of School Attorneys.

A gay Republican

So what does a 21-year-old do with $900,000? "I actually ended up with $600,000," says Nabozny. About $300,000 went for legal fees, and he put $450,000 in a trust that he can't touch for 20 years. He bought a black Jeep Grand Cherokee, furnished his apartment and wants to buy his own home.

Besides the money, Nabozny has had to deal with a strange kind of fame. He has become a poster boy for gay civil rights and he's not comfortable with it.

Unlike many people involved in gay issues, he's a card-carrying Republican and is opposed to abortion. Still, he'll spend most of this year with speaking engagements and grand marshal duties at gay pride parades. Hollywood wants to bring his story to the big screen, and he has an entertainment lawyer and an agent working deals on his behalf.

But once the year is over, Nabozny wants to go back to being a private person. "There are so many other roles that I've sort of neglected since the lawsuit has taken over my life."

He will return to college to become a social worker. "I would like to start a group home for gay and lesbian kids who are having problems in their school, community or family and can't be there anymore." He's dating a 23-year-old computer programmer who lives in his apartment building.

The lawsuit, he says, became an outlet for his feelings of powerlessness and frustration. These days: "I feel very vindicated."

Free Press education writer Jennifer Juarez Robles contributed to this report.

DETROIT FREE PRESS, March 19, 1997

MTV plugs in to Nabozny visit

BY JENNIFER JUAREZ ROBLES, Free Press Staff Writer

When Jamie Nabozny talks, MTV listens.

The music television cable network that reaches millions of young people worldwide will film Nabozny's visit Saturday with 30 to 40 metro Detroit youths at Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Ferndale.

Jim Fraenkel, a researcher and producer with MTV, said the network is profiling Nabozny for a series on young people's rights that will air in the fall.

"We wanted to find out where Jamie is today and what he's doing," Fraenkel said. "Speaking to young people is an important part of his life, and we wanted to capture him doing that."

After four years of anti-gay harassment that included beatings so severe Nabozny required stomach surgery, Nabozny won a $900,000 settlement in November. A federal jury had found that two of his former school principals in the Ashland School District in northern Wisconsin and another administrator failed to protect Nabozny, despite his pleas for help.

"Boys will be boys," one of the principals told Nabozny, according to trial testimony.

Jaron Bryant, youth mentor coordinator with Affirmations, said Nabozny will receive a hero's welcome.

"There's a strong sense of appreciation for what this case has done. It sets precedent for future cases involving youth who feel their rights have been discriminated against," Bryant said.

Bryant, a 1986 graduate of River Rouge High School, said he never felt the school's environment was safe enough for him to tell anyone that he was gay.

"It was easier to be silent," Bryant, now 28, said. "I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible."

Julie Enszer, executive director of Affirmations, said she has found that Michigan educators often feel overwhelmed when gay students come out and become worried that the school system can't cope.

But Enszer said educators who may not know how to handle anti-gay violence should learn from the Nabozny decision.

"The fundament of public education is that we educate all young people to be citizens in this country and none of them are expendable," Enszer said. "So many of the young people in our program have the experience of being seen as expendable in public education. The Nabozny case says no young people are expendable."

Half of Affirmations' $450,000 annual budget supports its youth group, which is for people age 20 and younger. The program has operated since 1990.

For more information on Nabozny's visit or to join the Carl Rippberger Youth Services group, call Affirmations at 1-810-398-7105, Ext. 14.