Minnesota's largest school district on
Tuesday announced it had settled a pair of anti-gay bullying
lawsuits, The
New York Times reported.
The suburban Minneapolis Anoka-Hennepin
district on Monday night approved a legal agreement with the federal
government and six students who had sued the district.
The students claimed that they had
suffered from the district's policy requiring staff to remain neutral
when discussing the topic of sexual orientation. School officials
scrapped the policy last month after six students committed suicide
in less than two years, paving the way for the settlement.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Joan
Ericksen signed the agreement, which settles the student's lawsuit as
well as a separate Justice Department investigation. Under the
agreement, federal officials will monitor the district for five
years.
Additionally, the district will
implement steps designed to curb bullying, including hiring a mental
health consultant to review how the district responds to harassment
victims and ensuring students receive professional help when they
need it.
The six students, who will receive a
total payment of $270,000, were represented in their lawsuit by the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Center for
Lesbian Rights (NCLR).
“This historic agreement marks a
fresh start for the Anoka-Hennepin School District,” SPLC attorney
Sam Wolfe said in a statement. “Unfortunately, this district had
become notorious for anti-LGBT hostility and discrimination. This
consent decree sets the stage for Anoka-Hennepin to become a model
for other school districts to follow in creating more respectful
learning environments for all students in a thoughtful, systemic, and
proactive way.”
In a conference call on Tuesday, Thomas
E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, praised the
agreement.
“This is not about whether to
advocate gay marriage,” Perez said. “This is about safety.”
Laurie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the
Parent's Action League, a group formed to preserve the district's
policy, called the lawsuit an effort to “abolish conservative moral
beliefs about homosexuality.”
“Making schools safe for 'gay' kids
means indoctrinating impressionable, young minds with homosexual
propaganda,” she told The
Star Tribune in an email.
Fifteen-year-old Kyle Rooker, one of
the plaintiffs, recounted during a news conference the torment he
faced for being perceived as different.
He said he was happy that “kids
coming up behind me in school won't have to suffer the same things
that I did.” (Video of the news conference is embedded in the
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