KY> America is supposed to be for and by the people.
KY> That, how people want things to be, should be,
KY> even if some may not like it. AMerica is all
KY> about freedom, but that includes the freedom to
KY> restrict others, provided it is what the public
KY> wants, and not the govt.

Ken, I have been meaning to ask you something. Do you believe the right of the majority to "restrict the freedom of another" could mean that the following event is rational in your mind?

In the story below, school administrators and principals decided that in their opinion, Jamie Nabozny had no right to equal protection from harassment. They also decided they had no responsibility to provide a safe environment in which he should learn.

The school administrators also decided that he *deserved* the beatings he got. Their elected school board supported them.

Do you think this is fair? Do you still admit civil rights should be at the whim of a majority, and minorities can be forced to suffer intolerably?

What will you be doing to stop your offspring from doing this?

Rod "...I bet you won't enjoy this post" Swift :)

DETROIT FREE PRESS, March 19, 1997

He taught his school a lesson

Tormented in classrooms and hallways, gay student Jamie Nabozny sued his Wisconsin school for equal protection -- and won

BY JOHN TANASYCHUK, Free Press Staff Writer

Jamie Nabozny is only 21. But already, he can look back and say he dared to do what no other man has done.

Nabozny sued his Ashland, Wisc., high school in federal court. Three administrators were found liable for not protecting him from years of verbal and physical abuse. He was abused for being gay.

During those years, Nabozny was urinated on. Once, a boy pretended to rape him in a summer school class. Another time, he was kicked unconscious and several days later had to have surgery for internal bleeding.

Four times he tried to kill himself. Eventually, he had to leave Ashland and his parents' home to attend school where he could be safe.

"I was numb most of the time and I had to be numb to make it through," he says.

Last year, Nabozny won a $900,000 settlement following a trial that he hopes will end the kind of misery he suffered when Ashland Middle and High School administrators failed to protect him. On Friday, Nabozny will tell his story at a Detroit reception for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Lambda -- which represented Nabozny in the trial -- has been working since 1973 to achieve full civil rights for gay men and lesbians through litigation, public policy work and education.

In Nabozny's case, the U.S. Court of Appeals applied the Equal Protection Clause to sexual orientation in schools. It requires that the state "treat each person with equal regard, as having equal worth, regardless of his or her status."

"We are unable to garner any rational basis for permitting one student to assault another based on the victim's sexual orientation," the court said.

Nabozny's win is a clear precedent for gay and lesbian students across the country.

[...]

Despite his family's support, school was hell. Harassment was an hourly occurrence. He couldn't walk from one class to another without being tripped or spit on.

There were several violent episodes. The first happened during summer school between seventh and eighth grades when the teacher was out of the room. A boy started whispering: "You're so cute, we want to go out with you."

Other boys touched his buttocks and one of them pushed him down to the floor and pretended to rape him. The other kids stood around and laughed until Nabozny threw him off.

When he went to the principal's office for help, she was upset that he hadn't made an appointment. She said that if he was going to be openly gay, then he should expect such treatment. None of the perpetrators were ever punished.

Another time, Nabozny was sitting near the library when a group of boys approached him. One of them kicked him and his books fell out of his hands. As Nabozny bent down to pick them up, he was kicked again and he blacked out. A few days later, he was rushed to the hospital because he was in so much pain. Surgery revealed that he was suffering from internal bleeding.

Time after time, school administrators ignored his requests for protection.

[...]

Nabozny first thought about taking legal action at the suggestion of an attorney and crime victims advocate. "I was very apprehensive at first," he says. "I just made it out alive" from high school.

He retained his first lawyer Oct. 13, 1993, the day before his 18th birthday. A Madison, Wisc., federal district court dismissed his case without a hearing. Lambda took the case on appeal and last July, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal court in the nation ever to address liability for anti-gay violence in schools.

The court noted that gay people "are an identifiable minority" and that "it does seem dubious to suggest that someone would choose to be homosexual, absent some genetic predisposition, given the considerable discrimination leveled against homosexuals." The case then went to trial.

After a two-day federal jury trial in Eau Claire, Wisc., in November, seven jurors unanimously agreed that school principals had failed Nabozny by closing their eyes to the four years of brutal abuse he suffered from classmates.

The two sides agreed on the $900,000 settlement.

[...] During Nabozny's trial, the school district's lawyer tried to convince the jury that the anti-gay harassment that he experienced, such as repeated taunts of "faggot," wasn't as bad as other, racially based, epithets.

"Boys will be boys," one of the principals told Nabozny, according to trial testimony.

[...]

Go Back