The six Morgan Hill students suing the Morgan Hill School
District over a lack of protection from harassment did not end up
in the care of the American Civil Liberties Union by themselves.
Nor were they left to fend completely for themselves in the face of
what they said was district indifference to their plight.
The six Morgan Hill students suing the Morgan Hill School District over a lack of protection from harassment did not end up in the care of the American Civil Liberties Union by themselves. Nor were they left to fend completely for themselves in the face of what they said was district indifference to their plight.
The catalyst was a small group of Morgan Hill residents who met when the district was updating its strategic plan in 1994-95. That group put the students in touch with Diane Ritchie, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara County, and she, in turn, led them to the attention of the ACLU.
The lawsuit was filed in April 1998 in U.S. District Court.
One of many citizen–staff committees established was on diversity and it attracted – besides parents, teachers, school administrators and community members – Ron Schmidt, the first openly gay teacher in the local school district; Chris Campbell, a 1980 Live Oak graduate whose mission was to raise awareness of HIV; and Anne Rosenzweig, a Morgan Hill attorney.
According to Rosenzweig, the diversity committee worked for a year and a half to formulate a report with clear language in terms of sexual orientation.
What is unclear is whether or not the district ever used the report since the district is under instructions by its attorney not to comment on training.
Schmidt, Campbell and Rosenzweig – and others – from the diversity committee continued to meet as a support group for gay and lesbian students. Called GLAS (Gay and Lesbian Advocacy and Support), the group met with counselors at Community Solutions.
Lisa DeSilva, development director for Community Solutions, said GLAS was funded by United Way as a way to help gay, lesbian and questioning youth.
“That is a very high-risk group,” DeSilva said, “for suicide especially.”
DeSilva said her agency sponsored a Community Night to raise awareness, besides providing a home and counselors for the support group. The issue of young men and women of high school coming out was relatively new during the period covered by the alleged harassment.
“We did start seeing,” DeSilva said, “in the early 90s, more young people who felt comfortable coming out in a more public way, and I think that people did not always know how to respond most effectively to that. Not that they didn’t want to but they just didn’t know how.”
DeSilva said, besides the youths themselves, friends, family members, school communities and possibly employers all had to deal with the many fears surrounding the issue.
“We trained our entire staff,” DeSilva said, and presented a panel that included gays, lesbians and straight youth who were vocal advocates. The panel also included local members of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
It was at one of these GLAS meetings that a member of the diversity committee brought Alana Flores, the one student suing the district who has been publicly identified, to tell her story.
Morgan Hill resident Laura Brunton was at that meeting.
“It sounded like her treatment was ‘not the best’,” she said, “as far as the school district was concerned.”
LAWSUIT’S ORIGIN
It was to Ritchie, that teacher Schmidt brought Flores. Even though Ritchie generally practices employment law and not education law, she was interested.
“The education code and employment laws regulating discrimination are real similar,” she said. “Alana and Ron described what was happening to her and to other students. Then other students started calling me.” She heard from three or four more than the six who were plaintiffs in the suit but not all joined.
“Some of those were minors and their parents didn’t allow them to join,” she said. “They said to me ‘I’m afraid for my child.’”
Ritchie makes it clear that the suit has never been about money, even though $1 million is sought.
“All of them wanted to file to get protection on campus; they wanted the policy to change.” She doesn’t think much has changed in the district, though. Ritchie said she still hears about the administration allowing harassment.
“The (district) hasn’t ever made a change in their practice – I continue to receive calls from parents and students – it’s still going on.”
Other districts, Ritchie said, are different.
“I know their (MHSD) policy is not up to the standards in San Jose or San Francisco. Those programs were considerably better, especially since they are essentially nonexistent in Morgan Hill. What we want is to bring Morgan Hill up to the standard of other districts (in the area) – to be sure they are clear to teachers, parents and students, that their is real time spent training the administration.”
Ritchie discounted the suggestion that MHSD has not strengthen its harassment training because it does not want to admit it was insufficient in the past.
“There are rules of evidence that prevent introducing subsequent improvement or repairs in court,” she said. “They would never have to face (the upgraded training) in court.”
CHANGES?
Live Oak teacher Michael Sue BrownKorbel said some things have changed; others not.
“I still have to talk to students, almost on a daily basis, not to use the word “gay” as in – ‘that’s gay,’” she said. “However, five years ago it was considered really bizarre when a same-sex couple went to the prom. This year there were 10 couples.”
BrownKorbel said, as a longtime teacher in the district, that the situation is still difficult for teachers.
“We feel that our reputations are out on the line,” she said. “Nobody talks to us – the leadership is not there.”
BrownKorbel mentioned seeing a 10- or 15-minute movie once a few years ago about harassment “that was more appropriate to corporate offices, not to a school situation.”
Mary Alice Callahan, in the district for 18 years and president of the Federation of Teachers, added her perspective.
“Training was most extensive when Dr. Crow (James, superintendent before Carolyn McKennan) was here. We had speakers and a full day of training long before the lawsuit was filed.”
It is Callahan’s opinion that, as society has changed, so has the district.
“When I first started, there used to be a few voices among the teaching ranks asking for this kind of training; the training was fairly marginally attended. But teachers were aware of how endemic it (gay harassment) was, that people were treated with intolerance in the community.”
Complicating the issue was public opinion.
“This town is concerned that schools not advocate the (gay) lifestyle,” Callahan said. “Some people teaching about having respect (for gays) have been attacked by the community for advocating the lifestyle.”
The undercurrent surfaced when the contact number for a gay/lesbian support group was included on the Martin Murphy Middle School student body card, along with those of suicide prevention and other community help sources. Public meetings were contentious-to-ugly.
“It was a very unsafe time for our students and for those advocating their rights,” Callahan said. “We are better today, but it was a very scary time.”
HOW ARE THEY NOW?
The five years since the lawsuit was filed – the district appealed twice – have had a varying affect on the six students, according to Ritchie.
“The biggest change for these students,” she said, “is that, once they were no longer in the MHSD environment, they saw that harassment based on sexual orientation was not tolerated.” She told of one student attending a local college who saw a teacher stop a boy from making harassing statements.
“She called me that same day – she was so happy,” Ritchie said. “It really is illegal! People really don’t tolerate this,’” Ritchie said her client reported. “It was a wonderful reinforcement. It (their Morgan Hill experience) was so hard for them to believe that the principals and assistant principals were actually violating the law because it was so widespread.”
Ritchie said the students in the lawsuit are more mature and grown up now.
“They are not just traumatized teenagers, though they were strong before. I like these plaintiffs so much – they were so brave and a lawsuit is so hard.” She said the students were willing to go through the trauma because they don’t want what happened to them to happen to other students.
ON TO TRIAL
Rosenzweig, who has followed the case from its beginning and the students’ difficulties for years before that, commented on Ninth Circuit Court Judge Mary Schroeder’s decision to dismiss the district’s appeal and move ahead to trial.
“I regret that the plaintiffs in this case have had to wait five years for their case to proceed to trial,” she said, “but I am heartened that the court’s decision sends a strong message that teachers and school administrators throughout California and the rest of the Ninth Circuit must respond to reports of physical abuse and verbal harassment based on actual or perceived sexual orientation as vigorously as they respond to reports of harassment based on race, religion, national origin, or gender.
“Equal protection under the Constitution means that the adults we entrust with educating our children have a duty to protect all students equally from discriminatory physical abuse and verbal harassment.”
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