MOHAWK, NEW YORK – A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of a gay student alleging that the Mohawk school district failed to protect him from threats and physical assaults and ignored repeated bullying.
The school district, New York Civil Liberties Union (representing the student) and U.S. Department of Justice agreed to terms that will provide more than $75,000 in compensation, implement harassment policy reviews and training and require annual reports on the district’s progress.
Approved Monday by the U.S. District Court federal judge, the settlement includes several measures that bring the litigation to a close.
The student,  who was 14 years old at the time of the alleged harassment and is identified in court documents as Jacob or J.L., receives $50,000 from the district. The district is also responsible for up to $100 per week, through June 30, 2013, for the student’s therapy sessions. The student has since enrolled in another school district.
The NYCLU receives $25,000 for attorneys’ fees.
In return, the lawsuit against the school district is dropped and the court dismisses the action against the individual employees named in the suit, including Superintendent Joyce Caputo, high school principal Edward Rinaldo and Cynthia Stocker, equal opportunity compliance officer.
The settlement also does not hold the district and employees to any admission of “liability” or “wrongdoing.”
The DOJ, which filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of the student, also agrees not to pursue the matter further in court, according to NYCLU officials.
Both the NYCLU and school district released statements on the settlement.
“This lawsuit affirms that school districts nationwide have the responsibility to protect children from bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender non-conformity,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “No child should live in fear of going to school.”
Responding to the accusations of deliberate indifference to harassment, a statement from Caputo maintained the district’s position.
“The school district has steadfastly and consistently denied those allegations, many of which were wholly unsupported by independent evidence,” she stated in an e-mail.
The federal lawsuit alleged over the past two years, prior to this school year, the student was subjected to relentless verbal and physical abuse, culminating in another student bringing a knife and making a death threat.
A failure by district officials to formally investigate harassment, discipline students, or even inform the student and his parents of their right to file complaints under Board of Education grievance procedures is also part of claims made in the lawsuit.
“Student confidentiality issues and common sense prevent us from defending ourselves against every allegation that has played out in the media,” Caputo’s statement continues. “This has been a difficult experience for everyone in our school district and community, so we are happy to see it settled.”
Part of the settlement also involves the district’s hiring the Anti-Defamation League to train staff and review school district harassment policies. District officials will also compile reports on the training progress. Both stipulations are mandated to continue until June 30, 2013, and the district is then free to make its own decisions on how to proceed.
Caputo declined to give any cost to the district for the training aspect of the settlement. She also refused to answer any further questions on the issue. “My statement will be my statement,” she said when reached by phone.
“Our staff and administrators would never knowingly tolerate discrimination or bullying by anyone. Still, I think it’s important to stress that we continue to remain committed to doing everything in our power to prevent bullying and promote a culture of respect and tolerance in our schools. We recognize there is always room to learn and improve — and we intend to [do] just that,” Caputo wrote in her statement.
Caputo in her statement claims the district has provided sensitivity training to staff on diversity and harassment issues since the fall of 2000. The training has been provided for students since 2000 through the 2009-10 school year, she added in her statement, and the settlement provides additional initiatives and resources for the district to pursue.
Corey Stoughton, NYCLU lead counsel on the case, applauded the district for “making this commitment to protect all students from bullying and harassment. “We look forward to working with the district officials and the Department of Justice on implementing these important reforms, and hope that they will inspire other school systems to confront bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming students,” she said in a released statement.
from The Evening Times

Derrick Martin

COCHRAN, GEORGIA — Derrick Martin worried that he could be responsible for getting this year’s prom at Bleckley County High School canceled.
That’s because the 18-year-old senior is gay, and he plans to take his boyfriend to the year’s most anticipated dance.
That’s something that’s never happened in this small Middle Georgia town. A similar plan by two female students in Mississippi this month prompted school officials there to cancel the prom, making national news.
After asking Bleckley County school officials permission in January to take another boy to the prom, Martin got word last week that his high school will allow it. Bleckley’s prom is April 17 in the high school cafeteria.
“I didn’t expect them to say yes,” he said. “It’s who I am. I have the same rights.
“It’s my senior prom, and I wanted to be able to prove not everyone would cancel prom.”
Martin, an honor student who tutors at-risk elementary and middle school students after school, knew the move would be controversial for the town of about 5,200 residents.
At his high school, prom dates from outside counties must be approved in advance, so Martin went to his principal and asked.
“At first she said no, Cochran wasn’t ready for it,” he said.
Then last week, school officials said they have no policy in place against it.
“You don’t have the right to say no,” principal Michelle Masters said. “As a principal, I don’t judge him. I’m taught not to judge. I have to push my own beliefs to the background.”
She’s just hoping it won’t become an issue in the community and distract from juniors and seniors who have looked forward to the event all school year.
As fellow senior Errin Lucas put it, “Have you seen Cochran? There is nothing else to live for.”
Charlotte Pipkin, the superintendent of schools, said the school board didn’t take any votes on Martin’s request, but the board did discuss the matter during a board meeting.
“Students are allowed to bring their date to prom,” Pipkin said. “There’s nothing that says who the date is.
“I want this to be an enjoyable event, and I don’t want anything to take away from that,” she added.
Martin came out as gay during his sophomore year in high school, but even now he said not all his classmates are tolerant.
He expects he may get attention during the prom “lead out,” in which the school announces each senior’s name and the date’s name.
“I’ll take out insurance on my tux,” he said.
It’s a big step for the high school — and the community, many townsfolk said.
“With our town being so small and country, it’s a very big thing,” Lucas said. “It’s unexpected, but I’m glad. We have to move forward.”
A sampling of residents Monday drew plenty of objections to Martin’s plan, but few people were willing to give their name.
Miranda Taylor, who was working behind the counter at a Wendy’s restaurant, said “a lot of people will stare,” but she thinks the move shows Bleckley County is more open.
The high school prom will have security.
Even if there is a backlash, both educators said they won’t cancel or change their plans for the prom. It would not be fair to the students, Pipkin said.
Martin said he could have settled for what he did last year and simply attend the prom with a female friend, but he didn’t want to do that this year. “It’s standing up for the rights thing, especially after the Mississippi canceled prom,” he said. “It’s senior prom. It’s pretty big.”
from The Macon Telegraph

Students at an elite L.A. private school who posted death threats and antigay messages on the Internet site of a 15-year-old classmate can’t claim the constitutional protection of free speech, a California appeals court has ruled.
The parents of the boy targeted by the threatening and derogatory posts on his website withdrew him from Harvard-Westlake School and moved to Northern California to protect him from classmates who had incorrectly labeled him as gay and pronounced him “wanted dead or alive,” the boy’s father said in a lawsuit brought against six students and their parents.
The defendants had attempted to deflect the charges by seeking a judgment from Los Angeles County Superior Court that the comments were 1st Amendment-protected speech on an issue of public interest, a motion denied by the lower court and upheld by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision Monday.
The Los Angeles Police Department detective who initially investigated the hostile website postings against the student, identified only as D.C., had declined to pursue charges against the other students, saying their “annoying and immature Internet communications did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution.”
The Los Angeles County district attorney likewise declined to prosecute.
The appeals court decision separating cyber-bullying from free speech will allow the boy and his parents to move forward with their suit against the students for alleged hate crimes.
from The Los Angeles Times

GUERNSEY – The age of consent for gay men in Guernsey could be reduced to 16, if the island’s politicians agree.
Later this month the States are due to debate if the laws should be made equal for homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Currently sex between two men is illegal under the age of 18, but between a man and a woman is legal from the age of 16.
The Home Department, which has put forward the move, said there needed to be equality on human rights grounds.
The department said according to legal advice anybody who objects to the change on moral or religious grounds is unlikely to be justified in law.
The changes would also strike from the law-books the current ban on sex between more than two men at the same time.
In 1999, Guernsey lowered the age of consent for homosexuals from 21 to 18 and the issue was last raised in the States in 2007.
from The BBC

SWITZERLAND – An extra small condom for boys as young as 12 is going on sale in Switzerland.
The condom is being produced because a study conducted in 2008 showed that 12 to 14-year-old boys did not protect themselves sufficiently when having sex.
Young boys often cannot find a suitably sized condom, Bettina Maeschli, spokeswoman of the Swiss Aids Federation said on Monday.
The organisation got together with two others working in the area of sexual health to have the condoms produced.
Initially 55,000 packs containing one small and one normal-sized condom are being manufactured. The manufacturer, Lamprecht AG, will produce more if necessary. Maeschli said no figures were available to indicate possible demand.
The condoms, named “Ceylor Hotshot” will be sold over the counter, and Swiss Aids Foundation will also sell them via the internet. In addition, they will be distributed to sex educationalists so that they can inform boys about the importance of using the correct size.
from Swiss Info

MONTREAL, CANADA — Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers are twice as likely to think about killing themselves or to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers, Montreal researchers have found.
But do not blame the sex. Blame society.
When it comes to poor mental health, self-identity is crucial, a study of 1,900 people, age 14 to 18, in 14 Montreal-area high schools concluded.
Published this week in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the study is considered among the first to tease apart the issue of identity and attraction.
Most people think sexual orientation means being straight, gay or bisexual, when it’s actually more complicated than that, said study co-author Dr. Richard Montoro, of the McGill University Health Centre.
Orientation actually has three components: behaviour, fantasies and identity — and they don’t necessarily go together — and that’s what the study looked at in connection with suicide, he said.
The research targeted teens because adolescence is often a turbulent age, and a period in life when people make realizations about who they are sexually.
Researchers chose to examine sex in relation to suicide because that’s the worst of the “bad” health outcomes.
The study found no increased suicide risk in teens who saw themselves as heterosexual, average age 16, regardless whether they reported same-sex attraction, fantasy or behaviour.
“You can have all the same-sex fantasies you like, and it won’t increase your risk,” Montoro said. “It’s important to realize that a large proportion of people who have sex with or are attracted to people of the same sex do not identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. They consider themselves heterosexual.
“But when kids identified themselves as GLB, then their risk for suicide attempts went up — 2.2 times higher than heterosexuals.”
Respondents who said they were unsure about their sexual orientation were more likely to think about suicide, but that did not translate into more suicide attempts.
Previous studies have shown that GLB adolescents are at increased risk for factors associated with higher suicide rates, including being victims of violence, suffering depression, anxiety, alcohol or other drug abuse, and eating disorders.
So what makes gay children a greater suicide risk?
Researchers suggest it’s society’s anti-homosexual bias.
“It’s as soon as you realize that you are not like everyone else; that’s really the problem,” said Montoro, who also heads the McGill University Sexual Identity Centre.
“That’s what I see in the clinic. The period that was most difficult for these people was when they were coming out, when they realized they are not what everyone thinks they are.”
The next study about suicide among gay teens ought to explore the impact of the environment, including home, school and sports, on suicide risk, Montoro said.
“The kids who were most at risk for suicide were in a non-supportive environment,” he said.
The obstacle to good mental health is not homosexuality but homophobia, said Laurent McCutcheon, president of Gai Ecoute, a Quebec help line and resource centre established 30 years ago for gay people, those questioning their sexual orientation or identity, and their families.
“It’s the rejection and the abandonment and the discrimination that follows,” McCutcheon said.
from The Vancouver Sun

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – With everything from art classes, summer school and jobs on the chopping block this year, the San Francisco school board will decide this week whether to greatly expand school services, support and instruction on issues of sexual orientation.
The decision could cost the school district, which is facing a $113 million budget shortfall over the next two years, at least $120,000 a year – enough cash to cover the salaries of two classroom teachers.
The school board is expected to vote Tuesday on the fiscally controversial resolution calling for San Francisco Unified to add a new full-time staffer to manage “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning” youth issues in the district’s Student Support Services Department.
It also would require the district to track harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and distribute an educational packet to parents, encouraging them to discuss “the issues of sexuality, gender identity and safety” with their children.
That commitment probably would cost about $90,000 a year for the staffer and maybe another $30,000 for the rest.
San Francisco school officials have long backed education and support of gay and lesbian support services and recently created the nation’s first school district Web site for gay youth.
That’s in contrast to some other school districts. Last year in Alameda, for example, a torrent of controversy was unleashed over plans to introduce a 45-minute lesson on gay and lesbian issues. The lesson was eventually adopted by that school board over the objections of some parents who said it violated their rights to teach their children their opinion of such issues.
That’s not the issue in San Francisco. Money is.
Current lesbian and gay services, including the Web site and sexual orientation curriculum, are funded by outside grants that aren’t guaranteed year to year.
But it’s not enough, said school board member Sandra Fewer, who wrote the resolution with help from the Student Advisory Council and the city’s Human Rights Commission.
“It’s not like we don’t have any money,” she said. “It means we have to prioritize our monies.”
With the district’s looming $113 million shortfall, few district programs or services will survive unscathed.
“There’s not enough money in the general fund for the general purposes,” board member Jill Wynns said. “Just add (this) to the $113 million deficit.”
Having said that, Wynns said she doesn’t know how she’ll vote Tuesday.
“I don’t want to vote against it,” she said.
While San Francisco is considered generally a safe haven for gay and lesbians, harassment and bullying are still common in schools, according a district survey.
In 2007, 77 percent of the district’s students said they heard other students making harassing remarks based on sexual orientations, and nearly half said they never heard staff respond to such remarks. Nearly 80 percent of fifth-graders said their peers use the phrases “fag,” “dyke” or “that’s so gay.”
The resolution would commit funding to maintain the expanded programs no matter what but also require district officials to seek outside funding whenever possible.
“We should set aside and commit money,” Fewer said. “If we can say that this is a budget priority during one of the biggest budget cuts of our time, we’re really saying this is” important.
from The San Francisco Chronicle

A new American research suggests that gay teenagers and young adults are more vulnerable to bullying than their counterparts.
The study found that bullying rates more than tripled for lesbians, while bisexuals reported being bullied more often.
Researchers discovered that bisexual girls were more likely to be bullies themselves whereas gay males were much less likely to bully others.
The study team came up with their findings from a 2001 survey of 7,559 children of female registered nurses.
Although, the study does not prove that being gay or bisexual is directly responsible for causing people to be bullied or to turn into bullies, it does point out the size of the bullying problem, showing that it is not limited to grade school.
Lead author Elise Berlan, of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said the research shows that “kids who are different – who are perceived as weak and falling out of the mainstream – are more vulnerable to bullying.
“It’s really important to have some documentation about what the experiences of our kids are.”
The participants in the study were aged between 14 and 22.
Out of 2,720 males, 93.5% said they were heterosexual, 4.5% said they were mostly heterosexual and 0.5% said they were bisexual. The other 1.4% said they were mostly or completely homosexual.
Among the 4,839 females, 88.3% said they were heterosexual, 9.5% said they were mostly heterosexual, 1.9% said they were bisexual and 0.3% said they were mostly or completely heterosexual.
Compared to completely heterosexual kids, all these groups were more likely to have experienced bullying except for bisexual girls. Gay males, mostly or completely gay, had double the risk after the study team adjusted the statistics for factors like age and race.
Before the statistics were adjusted, 44% of mostly or completely gay males and 26% of completely heterosexual males said they had been bullied.
Fifteen females, who were completely or mostly homosexual, were over three times more likely to be bullied, while bisexual females were 2.4 times more likely to report bullying others.
from Daily News & Analysis
*
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Dear Amy: I’m a gay teenage guy, and I have no idea how to come out.
My family is more liberal than most, but I can’t even begin to gauge their reaction.
I know they’re comfortable with gay rights, but how do I know if they’ll be comfortable with my being gay?
I’m not sure about my friends either — we never really discuss “serious” issues with each other, so how do I bring it up? With Facebook and e-mail taking over, should I tell them in person?
And I have no clue what to do about the relatives and friends I don’t see every day — do I call? E-mail? Tell them over the holidays?
Oct. 11 is National Coming Out Day. I might be able to bring myself to do it then, but it’s tough to do when I can’t tell how anybody will react.
Nervous

Dear Nervous: I understand the concept behind National Coming Out Day, but what I don’t like is the pressure it might put on you to come out on a specific day.
Coming out is a process that doesn’t follow neat guidelines or timetables.
Start the process by talking with the person in your life whom you deem most likely to be supportive. If you have any “out” gay friends or relatives, they might share their experience and offer advice.
As you and your friends mature, you will all wrestle with questions of relationships and sexuality (and a lot of other things).
Please do not make important personal disclosures on Facebook. Tell whomever you want to tell personally.
You can rarely anticipate and can never control how another person reacts to any particular thing. But this will go best if you present it as a fact of your life. If people have a problem with your sexuality, then they’ll need to do the work required to come to terms with it.
You can check for local events for National Coming Out Day and read coming-out stories on the Human Rights Campaign’s website at www.hrc.org.
from The Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK – Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers may be at higher risk of binge-eating and purging than their heterosexual peers, starting as early as age 12, a new study finds.
Past research has found connections between sexual orientation and the risk of eating disorders in adults — showing, for instance, that gay men have higher rates of symptoms than their heterosexual counterparts.
Less has been known about how sexual orientation affects teenagers’ risks of various eating disorders.
For the new study, researchers at Harvard University and Children’s Hospital Boston used data from a U.S. survey of nearly 14,000 12- to 23-year-olds to look at the relationship between sexual orientation and binge-eating and purging.
They found heightened rates of binge-eating among both males and females who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or “mostly heterosexual.”
Purging, by vomiting or abusing laxatives, was also more common among these teens, the researchers report in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“We found clear and concerning signs of higher rates of eating disorder symptoms in sexual-minority youth compared to their heterosexual peers even at ages as young as 12, 13 or 14 years old,” lead researcher S. Bryn Austin, an assistant professor of pediatrics, told Reuters Health in an email.
Among females, lesbian, bisexual and mostly heterosexual respondents were all about twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to report binge-eating at least once per month in the past year.
Bisexual and mostly heterosexual girls and women were also more likely to say they had purged in the past year in order to control their weight.
Among males, the highest risks were seen among homosexuals — who were seven times more likely to report bingeing and nearly 12 times more likely to report purging than heterosexual males.
Bisexual and mostly heterosexual boys and men also had elevated risks of both problems — with rates anywhere from three to seven times higher than those of their heterosexual counterparts.
The survey data do not offer a potential reason for the findings, but past studies give some insight, according to the researchers.
“We know that gay, lesbian, and other sexual-minority kids are often under a lot of pressure,” Austin said, noting that these teens are often “treated like outsiders” in their own families and schools, and may be excluded, harassed or victimized by bullies.
“This kind of isolation and victimization can take its toll on a young person,” Austin explained, “and one of ways it can play out is in vulnerability to eating-disorder symptoms and a host of other stress-related health problems.”
She added that because negative attitudes and discrimination against sexual minorities are still pervasive in society, families need to be a source of support.
It is “incredibly important,” Austin said, “for parents and other family members to reach out and make sure these youth know they are loved and supported, that they can count on their families to stay by their side.”
from Reuters