Ex-Students Settle Harassment Suit

Six former students of the Morgan Hill Unified School District settled their federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that district officials ignored years of anti-gay harassment and violence inflicted on the plaintiffs by other students.

Gay advocacy groups praised the $1.1-million settlement, approved by a San Jose federal judge, as a national model. It requires the school district south of San Jose to implement mandatory annual training regarding harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity for administrators, teachers, middle school and high school students, and staff.

The settlement ends five years of wrangling during which a state law was passed -- with the Morgan Hill students’ input -- prohibiting anti-gay harassment of students.

The case also prompted a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in April that stated public school administrators who fail to take effective steps to counter anti-gay harassment could be violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection -- even if they have an anti-discrimination policy in place.

That ruling covered districts in California and eight other Western states and, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys, finally brought district officials to the negotiating table.

“It was like pulling on a rope for five years in a game of tug of war, and then suddenly they let go,” said lead plaintiff Alana Flores, now 24, who along with friend Freddie Fuentes sought legal help shortly after graduating from Live Oak High School in 1997.

“It was so difficult dealing with administrators. They would say it wasn’t their problem,” Flores said. “Well, five years later, it is their problem. Unfortunately, it took us hitting their pocketbooks and taking them to court for them to get it.”

Both Flores and Fuentes say they were subjected to anti-gay epithets at school on a nearly daily basis. Anti-gay slurs were scribbled on Flores’ locker, and she once received a pornographic death threat scrawled on a picture of a bound and gagged woman with a slit throat. Fuentes was beaten and his ribs broken.

The former students said they reported the incidents to administrators, teachers and staff. But only one perpetrator was ever disciplined.

“When things like that weren’t addressed, they would escalate,” Flores said Tuesday at a news conference. “It was perpetuating violence.”

Morgan Hill district officials said in a prepared statement Tuesday that they believed the district had no liability in the matter but agreed to the settlement to avoid a trial. Supt. Carolyn McKennan said in the statement that there “was no credible evidence

“The district has been against all forms of harassment before, during and after this litigation,” the statement said.

But plaintiffs’ attorneys, as well as other gay-rights advocates, say the settlement represents a significant advance in the battle for legal protections for students who are harassed because they are gay or perceived to be gay.

A successful 1999 bill sponsored by state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) banned harassment of gay students, and eight other states now have similar laws, said Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which litigated the case along with the American Civil Liberties Union and San Jose attorney Diane Ritchie. Those laws do not mandate awareness training for school districts. But last year’s federal appeals court ruling strengthened the message to districts that they must take seriously anti-gay harassment against students and offer those students the same protections offered to others.

“Schools now have an obligation to address anti-gay harassment,” said Ann Brick, the ACLU’s staff attorney who worked on the Morgan Hill case. “This settlement shows them how to do it.... It becomes a model for other districts.”

Brick said the monetary damages in the case also send a strong message that “those school districts that ignore the problem do so at their own peril.” Of the $1.1-million settlement, $560,000 will go to the plaintiffs and the rest to attorneys.

Similar cases have been settled in recent years on behalf of gay students around the country, including in Visalia, Calif., and Reno.

But this appears to be the first brought on behalf of a group of students, and the training mandated by the settlement is the most comprehensive to date because it applies to such district employees as bus drivers and custodians, and builds in a strict monitoring system to ensure compliance, said Jon Davidson, senior counsel for the gay and lesbian civil rights group Lambda Legal, which has handled several similar cases.

Tina D’Elia, hate-violence director at San Francisco’s nonprofit Community United Against Violence -- which addresses violence against gays, lesbians and transgender people -- applauded the mandated training, calling it crucial.

“The only way to institutionalize anti-discrimination is if the administration is supporting the teachers and the teachers then support the students.

“Everyone has to be on the same page with how you’re going to be putting a policy forth,” she said.

The case against Morgan Hill was filed in U.S. District Court in 1998. In addition to Flores and Fuentes, the plaintiffs include Jeanette Dousharm and three other students.

The alleged abuses occurred between 1991 and 1998 at Live Oak High School, Britton Middle School and Murphy Middle School.

According to the lawsuit, a bus driver ignored an assault on Fuentes that left him with broken ribs at a school bus stop when he was in seventh grade, allowing the attacker to board the bus.

When Flores showed the pornographic death threat she received to the assistant principal, the lawsuit alleges, she was sent back to class and told, “Don’t bring me this trash anymore. This is disgusting.”

The assistant principal then allegedly asked Flores if she was gay and said, “If you’re not gay, why are you crying?”

With their mothers seated at their sides Tuesday, Flores and Fuentes recounted their years at the school.

Fuentes was shy and withdrawn, and began failing his classes. Flores, meanwhile, became more strident, defending other gay students who were victimized.

Although she did not come out as gay until her senior year, she complained regularly about the harassment against her, Fuentes and other gay students. Soon, Fuentes joined her in speaking out.

“Once I started complaining, I didn’t stop,” he said. “I would bring Alana with me. I’d even get her out of class.”

But they were regularly rebuffed, the former students said. When Fuentes’ mother, Maritza Glynn, complained to administrators, she said, “I’d always get, ‘Kids will be kids,’ or ‘Boys will be boys.’ ”

Now that the case is concluded, Fuentes hopes to complete his last year of college and obtain his bachelor’s degree in dance.

Flores said the harassment by students and indifference of administrators have made her confrontational and defensive, a trait she hopes to shed as she moves forward with her life.

“It feels like I’ve been strapped to a giant rubber band, trying to run and then something pulls me back,” she said. “There’s a huge part of my life that I feel I needed to make amends with.... [The settlement] is a turning point. I feel it in my heart that it’s a dawning for me.”