Some believe hostilities increased after anti-gay lawsuit is
settled
The January settlement of a lawsuit brought against the Morgan Hill School District by six former students is having repercussions for several current Live Oak students, they say, in the form of continued harassment and blame.
The lawsuit, alleging a lack of response by district officials to former students’ claims of harassment based on their perceived sexual orientation, was settled when the district agreed to training of district employees and once-a-year training for district 7th and 9th graders.
The district also agreed to a financial settlement of $1.1 million – $560,000 to be divided among the former students plus $540,000 in attorney’s fees.
Live Oak High Gay and Straight Alliance (GSA) members say students at the school are blaming them for the School District “losing” the money, even though the current Live Oak students do not receive any money from the settlement.
“They think we are taking money from the district, which is having money problems anyway,” said GSA President Brandy Houseal. “We’re not even getting any money.”
Attorney Mark Davis, who represented the district in the lawsuit, said the settlement money does not come out of the district’s pocket.
“The financial portion of the settlement is not paid directly by the district but by the Joint Powers Authority,” he said.
The Joint Powers Authority is a consortium of school districts that join together, essentially to share risks – a self-insuring agency. School districts are generally unable to secure insurance policies that would shield them from such lawsuits, according to Superintendent Carolyn McKennan.
GSA students also claim they will see no difference in the way they are treated on campus because of the settlement, except perhaps an increase in hostilities.
“We get told, ‘You caused this to be a big issue,’ and what they mean is not us, but ‘people like you,’ and they are resentful,” said Houseal. “Most people still don’t understand.”
GSA members agree that harassment of students because of their sexual orientation is still occurring.
“We still hear derogatory comments all the time,” said Amy Aguilar, GSA treasurer. “And the word ‘gay,’ that now means something is bad. We hear it all the time about something they don’t like, ‘That’s so gay,’ they say.”
The students contend “probably half” of the Live Oak staff and administrators either are unconcerned about harassment or don’t take action because they, too, are prejudiced.
The Flores vs MHUSD lawsuit was initiated to address the alleged lack of intervention by the district and the lack of punishment for the alleged perpetrators of the harassment. GSA students said there seems to be the same lack of concern today as in 1998, when the lawsuit was filed.
“Many times, if we say we have been harassed, it’s like we’re the ones causing the problem,” said GSA Secretary Chara Crane. “It’s almost like you don’t want to tell anyone about it, because you don’t know how they’ll react.”
Live Oak Principal Nancy Serigstad said she was surprised to hear the reactions of the GSA students.
“The amazing thing to me is that when I walk through this campus, I continue to hear more and more positive things from our students,” she said. “No one’s letting those types of things (incidents of harassment) go. And we’re not just focused on attitudes towards perceived gay or lesbian students, we’re focused on all types of harassment.”
Serigstad said the incidents may be handled in different ways, depending on what happens.
“If it is a derogatory comment, you may not address it right on the spot, but instead pull someone aside and explain why this is wrong,” she said. “Just the other day, some boys were in the quad, calling each other a name, and laughing about it. I pulled them aside, talked to them about it, did it very seriously and documented the language.
“Usually I hear when something happens, some of the students will walk into my office and tell me what’s going on. Sometimes the information has been good and sometimes not, but I always deal with it.”
Students are receptive to changing their behavior once they realize its hurtful nature, Serigstad said.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time when it’s a harassment issue, and I have to hand it to Brett (Assistant Principal Lee), Aida (Assistant Principal Fraser-Hammer) and Debbie (Assistant Principal Padilla), they handle it so well. If you tell another student that they are participating in behavior which is disturbing to another student, point out how they perceive, they are willing to listen,” she said. “I’ve even had some really tough kids that see what they were doing is wrong. At this age the students are really open to being educated, open to making changes.”
The students said forms of harassment they receive are, perhaps, more subtle than the students who filed the lawsuit claim to have been subjected to.
During a recent campus event, International Foods Day, Live Oak clubs and groups had an opportunity to raise funds by setting up booths. GSA members said students walked by and knocked things over at their booth and even stole food items. But even if they report incidents such as this one, they said, it becomes a matter of their word against another student’s, if they can identify a student that is doing the harassing.
Davis said if the incidents are not reported to teachers or administrators, the district cannot deal with them.
“It remains a frustrating situation, where students say they have been subjected to incidents of harassment and yet they go to the media or the School Board first, and don’t take advantage of the system that’s in place to deal with these incidents,” he said. “This was one of the main issues underlying the whole Flores case. A lot of them, by their own admission, did not report the incidents that occurred. Conversely, if it is being reported, efforts have to be made to deal with the students involved.”
Admitting the difficulty of sorting out the truth of the event, with one student’s word contradicting another, Davis said it is still better for the students to report the incidents. The reported theft from the GSA booth during the International event should be reported, he said.
“Hopefully these incidents are being reported,” he said. “There is always the possibility that the other students can be caught. And if you catch the people, they should be punished.”
Davis added that similar incidents may have occurred at other booths, or that the incident could possibly be a result of “personal animosity,” not in response to the sexual orientation of the students.
GSA member Billy Vickers said other students don’t want to be associated with students that are perceived to be homosexual.
“It doesn’t matter if you just walk a certain way, talk a certain way, like a certain music group, then they don’t want to be around you,” he said. “There’s a very narrow tolerance for differences.”
