O.C. Student, 13, Files Sexual Harassment Suit : Courts: Parents say behavior of 11 girls was unbearable for daughter. Capistrano school district is sole defendant.

For six months, a 13-year-old San Juan Capistrano girl said she put up with increasing abuse from seventh-grade classmates. The other girls pushed her, she says, and left death threats on her answering machine. One time, they threw a dissected frog down her dress in science class.

Now the girl is fighting back in court, and has filed a lawsuit against Capistrano Unified School District alleging she was sexually harassed and assaulted by 11 girls.

The girl’s parents--who asked that their daughter be identified only by her first name, Ashleigh--said repeated meetings with school officials failed to resolve the problem, and they eventually had to remove the girl from the middle school in April. The lawsuit accuses the district of negligence and contends Ashleigh’s civil rights were violated.

“All kids don’t like everyone, and that’s going to happen. You live with that,” the girl’s mother said Wednesday. “But you’re not antagonized every day. It became unbearable.”

The family’s lawsuit appears to be the first in Orange County alleging sexual harassment by students since a 1992 state law gave schools the authority to suspend or expel a student in grades four through 12 for sexually harassing a classmate, county school officials said.

Supt. James A. Fleming defended the district’s handling of the case, which included general disciplinary suspensions of up to five days and repeated conferences with parents of the girls allegedly behind the harassment.

“At some point, the parents of the offending students must assume some responsibility for the continuing verbal harassment,” Fleming said, noting that only the school district is named a defendant in the lawsuit filed last week in Orange County Superior Court.

The superintendent said he is confident the district will be able to successfully defend the lawsuit.

“However, this is another unfortunate incident in which before we prevail, thousands of dollars will have to be spent in attorney fees that otherwise could, and should, go into the classroom,” he said.

In a May 22 letter to Ashleigh’s parents, Assistant Supt. Thomas R. Anthony said he had made a “thorough investigation” and offered recommendations to school officials.

“It is distressing that such incidents occurred within the community; however, if Ashleigh were to re-enter Capistrano Unified School District, we certainly would welcome her,” wrote Anthony, who heads the district’s secondary school operations.

The family says Ashleigh’s troubles started in November, 1994, with a group of girls in her science class at Shorecliffs Middle School.

In the lawsuit, Ashleigh alleges two classmates shoved her to the floor at a school dance. On another day, the girl said three classmates placed a piece of a dissected frog down her dress, and someone trashed her locker and stole her math book. She alleges the girls repeatedly made “sexually degrading remarks” about her in science class and outside of class, making fun of everything from her clothes to the cut of her bangs.

The girl’s parents said they aren’t sure why Ashleigh was “marked” for harassment. The girl’s mother described her as a straight-A student who was labeled a “bop” by some classmates because of her bubbly personality.

At first, Ashleigh wanted to stay in school to be with her friends, but they began staying away from her out of fear, her mother said. The family also hoped initially the problems would go away.

“We thought hey, these are kids. We all have gone through things,” the mother said. “We really blew it off. We were wrong.”

Ashleigh changed her mind about staying following Easter vacation, largely because 13 out of the 15 messages left on the family’s answering machine were death threats, her mother said.

The parents pulled the girl from the San Clemente middle school in April to finish the term in home study. She now attends a private school.

The family alleges that Ashleigh has been deprived of her right to a “public education in a safe, non-hostile environment, free from sexual harassment and physical abuse from her student peers.”

Their attorney, C. Brent Scott, said there is nothing in the law preventing someone from claiming sexual harassment by a person of the same gender. School legal officials, however, say they are not familiar with any similar claims being made among girls in other student sexual harassment suits across the state and country.

The family is seeking unspecified damages, including the costs of Ashleigh’s private schooling.

“She’s a good student, and she did nothing wrong, but she has been made to pay the price for this thing,” Scott said.

Her mother said Ashleigh made the final decision to go forward with the lawsuit and hopes others might be spared abuse at school because of the effort.

“It’s her way of fighting back,” the mother said. “We are in a position that we can fight back. Somebody has got to step up and say, ‘You know what, the good people have to start winning again.’ ”