Lawsuit against the school system in Bachmann's district

[tpsbmam]

From the Southern Poverty Law Center: "Time for Justice in Anoka-Hennepin":

The school district has made some halting efforts to forbid anti-LGBT bullying, but has done little to address the prejudices that fuel it. Worse, district officials refuse to lift their official sexual orientation curriculum policy—in effect, a “gag order”—that prevents teachers from discussing LGBT issues with students. Pleas to do so have come from within the community, most visibly from Tammy Aaberg, mother of one of the victims. The policy effectively keeps staff members from acknowledging that LGBT people exist.

Here's what one 14-year-old who is part of the lawsuit said:

“It got so bad that every day when my bus got to school I thought about hiding under one of the seats so I wouldn’t have to go in to school—so I wouldn’t be called names or pushed around and so I wouldn’t have to hear the rumors other kids were making up about me.”

Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (Teaching Tolerance’s parent organization) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights sued the district, demanding that it confront the pervasive anti-gay harassment in its schools and end the gag policy.

From a separate SPLC article:

The lawsuit comes a day after Anoka-Hennepin officials denied any responsibility for the severe and pervasive harassment suffered by LGBT students. It was also reported on Wednesday that the district is at the center of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights into reports of anti-gay bullying.

“There is something seriously wrong in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, and district officials know it,” said NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell. “In school after school, kids who are perceived as gay are harassed mercilessly until they drop out, melt down or lash back. This epidemic of harassment – unlike anything we’ve seen in neighboring districts – is plainly fueled by the district’s shameful and illegal policy singling out LGBT people and LGBT people alone for total exclusion from acknowledgement within the classroom.”

The school district’s gag policy, known officially as the “Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy,” prohibits staffers from offering support to LGBT students or acknowledging the existence of LGBT people. It has played a significant role in encouraging the hostile climate by stigmatizing LGBT students – casting them as pariahs not fit to be mentioned within the school community, a message that comes across loud and clear both to LGBT students and their harassers. It has also limited the effective responses that teachers can provide when they see anti-LGBT harassment taking place.

The lawsuit asserts that the district’s gag policy and its failure to protect these students violates their rights under the U.S. Constitution, Title IX and the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

For those who say you can't hold Bachmann responsible, I say bull. You can hold her and the people who elected her responsible for this cruel mindset. She was elected by the same garbage who live in this district and would vote for a Michele Bachmann. She and her husband spew their anti-gay venom constantly -- you don't think THAT influences the school and parents/students prone to being clueless bigots? It sure as shit does -- it gives hatred an official imprimatur.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Yes

'For those who say you can't hold Bachmann responsible, I say bull. You can hold her and the people who elected her responsible for this cruel mindset. She was elected by the same garbage who live in this district and would vote for a Michele Bachmann. She and her husband spew their anti-gay venom constantly -- you don't think THAT influences the school and parents/students prone to being clueless bigots? It sure as shit does -- it gives hatred an official imprimatur.'

Her office says she has nothing to do with the problems there

[kelly1mm]

2. The vast majority of this school district is in Congressman Ellison's district,

not Bachmann's. Do you hold him and the people who elected him responsible?

[Angry Dragon]

3. Only if he and they have not spoken out about it

and tried to find a solution to the problem