Justice Dept. Says Anti-Gay Bullying Still a Growing Problem

The Justice Department administers a civil rights division that handles complaints about bias-driven violence and harassment. The fastest-growing source for such complaints comes from youths who have been assaulted and harassed for their ethnicity, religion, and sexuality, among other factors, in spite of a new national awareness around the issue of bullying and youth suicide, the Washington Blade reported on Sept. 13.

"The bullying of kids who are LGBT is probably the largest growth area in our docket," a Civil Rights Division assistant DA, Thomas Perez, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that same day, going on to say that youth-on-youth bullying is "an emerging growth area."

The article noted that Perez was responding to questions from Sen. Al Franken, the legislator who has sponsored the Student Non-Discrimination Act, an LGBT-inclusive federal anti-bullying bill.

Perez offered praise for Franken's measure, but stopped short of indicating that the president wholeheartedly supports it in its current form, the Blade noted.

"I very much support the goals behind your efforts in introducing the Student Non-Discrimination Act," Perez told Franken. "Kids are dying, kids are being brutally assaulted, kids are scared." Perez went on to cite other steps that the President and First Lady have taken to address the problem, including a summit on the issue at the White House last spring.

"Additionally, the Education Department has interpreted federal law prohibiting gender discrimination to cover in some instances LGBT students who don't conform to gender stereotypes," the Blade reported. "Title IV of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibit harassment based on gender."

The Blade article also reported that Perez spoke to the success of the only federal law that explicitly protects LGBT Americans, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

Some states have sought to sidestep the law. But Perez described it as a success, telling the committee chair, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, "We've trained over 4,000 local law enforcement officers. I have participated personally in many of them. Our message is this: This is not a law simply for the feds, this is everyone's law."

Perez also expressed optimism that the long-introduced (and long-delayed) Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would ban workplace discrimination against LGBTs, might one day pass Congress and make it to the desk of a president who would sign it. President Bush had vowed to veto ENDA if it reached his desk; a version that dropped provisions for transgender workers was touted a few years ago, with support from openly gay Congressman Barney Frank and the Human Rights Campaign, but the GLBT community as a whole blasted that move.

Perez noted that the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act "was introduced in 1996. It took 13 years. ENDA was actually introduced a few years before that, and it's still pending."

ENDA legislation has been introduced in every Congressional session save one since 1994.

Even as the Obama Administration and federal lawmakers have taken initial -- and, some would maintain, halting -- steps toward securing the rights of LGBT youth, state legislatures have been far bolder. New Jersey saw the nation's toughest anti-bullying measures come into law earlier this year, following the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a gay Rutgers University student whose intimate encounter with another man was observed by a straight roommate via webcam. The roommate reportedly blogged about the incident and then allegedly tried to spy on a second encounter.

But anti-gay groups have battled anti-bullying laws in state legislatures, arguing that such laws are merely cover for a "homosexual agenda" intent on "recruiting" impressionable young people and "converting" them into gays.

And in a national hotspot of youth suicide -- and, allegedly, anti-gay bullying -- a parent's group has gone so far as to gather signatures on a petition that seeks the retention of a controversial policy that critics say hinders school staff from intervening when homophobic students target their LGBT peers with taunts, harassment, and physical violence.

Eight students in the troubled Anoka-Hennepin school district, which lies in Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's district in Minnesota, have killed themselves in the last two years, a Sept. 13 New York Times article reported. A number of others have also attempted to kill themselves. Teen suicide is so prevalent in the Anoka-Hennepin School District that health authorities in the state have labeled it a "suicide contagion area."

A July 25 Mother Jones article noted that Bachmann, a GOP presidential contender, had campaigned against proactive measures to protect GLBT youth in the district's schools, "seeing such initiatives as a way of allowing gays to recruit impressionable youths into an unhealthy and un-Christian lifestyle."

But the health of some gay teens -- and straight teens perceived to be gay -- has suffered without support from peers and mentors, the article suggested, relating the story of Samantha Johnson, a teen in the Anoka-Hennepin District who sought to establish a GSA at her school, Anoka Middle School. The district delayed the implementation of a student-run support group, citing as its reason a lack of certainty about the legality of GSAs.

Meantime, Samantha, whose mother says was heterosexual, was being bullied about her looks and dress. Whether she wore her usual clothing or tried to appear more feminine, the article said, the other students harassed her relentlessly about being a lesbian. In the end, Samantha shot herself with a hunting rifle.

Warning signs had sent her mother to school authorities --but to no avail. The article noted said that Samantha's friends claimed most of the bullying took place out of the sight of school staff and security cameras, but even when staff caught sight of her being harassed they did nothing to stop it. Nor did the volleyball coach contact Samantha's mother when the teen, depressed, stopped showing up for practice.

"If I had known, I would have pulled her out of that school so quick," Samantha's mother said of the things taking place while her daughter was supposedly safe in class. But school officials left her in the dark.

"Samantha's death was among the first in a wave of suicides and attempted suicides that plagued this district for the next two years," the article reported. Some believe that a major contributing factor is a policy referred to locally as "no homo promo," the article said, a policy that had its beginnings in the mid-1990s.

"Back then, after several emotional school board meetings, the district essentially wiped gay people out of the school health curriculum," the article said. "There could be no discussion of homosexuality, even with regard to HIV and AIDS, and the school board adopted a formal policy that stated school employees could not teach that homosexuality was a 'normal, valid lifestyle.' "

Going for 'Neutrality'

In 2009, the district amended that policy to a "neutral" policy that left staff and faculty unsure about what was allowed and what might get them fired. Could they intervene in bullying situations? Could they invite students who seemed troubled to talk openly if they suspected that sexuality was at the root of the problem?

"Both policies were put into place at the behest of conservative religious activists who have been among Bachmann's biggest supporters in the district," the article said. "They include the Minnesota Family Council (MFC), and its local affiliate, the Parents Action League, which has lobbied to put discredited 'reparative therapy' materials in schools."

Online news resource City Pages reported on Aug. 23 that the results, seen from outside the school district, look like an unqualified disaster. But even in the thick of a rash of student suicides and two lawsuits from students who say they were bullied, the real life needs of teens apparently took a back seat to political grand standing, with a new anti-gay group forming just last year to combat the Anoka Middle School GSA that eventually did take form.

"The policy has gotten the Anoka-Hennepin School District sued twice now, with the families of six students filing lawsuits through either the Southern Poverty Law Center of the National Center for Lesbian Rights," the City Pages article said. "It's also brought the district under investigation from the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Education."

The bullying that reportedly goes on in the school district is not confined to gays. Straight students who find themselves labeled as gay are also marked for relentless harassment -- sometimes not just by students, but also by school staff.

A suit brought by the family of a heterosexual student who was targeted for abuse by two teachers cost the school district $25,000 when the case was settled out of court. The teachers involved faced mild disciplinary action.

The two lawsuits referenced by City Pages have been filed since the district's settlement with that student, and are pending. But despite the loss of life and lawsuits that have already cost the district thousands, and could cost thousands more, some parents see it as worthwhile, if it keeps discussion (or even recognition) of gays and the problems they face from entering the classroom.

The Parent's Action League sought to keep the "neutrality" policy during a meeting of the Anoka-Hennepin school board on Aug. 22, City Pages reported.

"Academic instruction is sacrificed when indoctrination of specific viewpoints come into the classroom," declared a representative of the group, Laurie Thompson, who presented a petition with just over one thousand signatures to keep the policy in place.

The article noted that a signature to repeal the neutrality policy had been submitted previously to the board, and that petition had 12,000 signatures. Thompson, the article said, addressed that earlier petition by saying that many of those who signed it have little stake in the issue because they do not reside in the district.

Thompson also said that when the current version of the policy was adopted, in 2009, a prominent GLBT equality advocate had pressed for its adoption.

But that equality advocate, Outfront Minnesota's Phil Duran, told City Pages that he had not actually supported the part of the policy that called for neutrality. Rather, Duran said, he foresaw -- and issued a warning about -- problems that would arise.

"When the district put together the neutrality language, we told them two and a half years ago, that's going to be a problem," Duran told City Pages. "We told them two and a half years ago; you're going to get sued. Now they are getting sued, just like we told them," Duran added.

"Duran said he communicated his concern about that line to school board member Scott Wenzel and the district's general counsel in 2009, but was ignored," the City Pages article said. "Outfront still supported enacting the policy in 2009, Duran said, because the 1995 policy it was replacing was 'deeply, deeply problematic.' "

Throughout the political back and forth, the stories of the students who took their own lives resonate. The mother of a gay 15-year-old named Justin Aaberg said that after her son was "maliciously outed" in middle school, he was subjected to a relentless and ongoing gauntlet of physical and psychological torment. One classmate told him that he was destined to burn in Hell because of his sexuality, the New York Times article reported. Finally, Justin hanged himself in July of 2010 -- one of a number of gay teens driven to suicide that finally caught the attention of the mainstream press.

The Times profiled several other students who say that they have been targeted for bullying in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, and have brought suit in search of relief.

"Kyle Rooker, 14, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing the district of failing to protect gay students, sank into a severe depression last spring after constant harassment by students who perceived him as gay," the Times reported.

"Brittany Geldert, 14, another plaintiff, has called herself bisexual since seventh grade and said she had repeatedly been called 'dyke' while teachers looked the other way," the Times added. "Her grades plummeted, her poetry took a dark turn and she has been hospitalized for severe depression and suicidal thoughts."

The article also reported on a student who was harassed because his parents are two men. Rather than address the problem by dealing with the bullies, the school's administration chose to single the boy out by allowing him to leave class before the other students so that he would not be attacked in the halls.

"The opponents say we want to teach about gay sex in the classroom, but that's the last thing we want," the boy's father, Jason Backes, told the Times. "We're not asking them to promote anything. But if a kid has gay parents, or is gay or lesbian, why can't the school say, 'You're O.K.'?"

When bullying goes unchecked and leads to tragedy, the victims are not the only ones lost; perpetrators also find that the lives they might have known are derailed. Dharun Ravi, the roommate who allegedly spied on Clementi, now faces 15 counts, including hate crimes charges and allegations of evidence tampering. and could face significant jail time -- up to a decade in a state facility.