Laws Against Harassment
There are a number of laws that protect young people from being discriminated against in school. With respect to the children of gay and lesbian parents, these laws generally fall into three groups: Laws that protect students from harassment, laws that protect them from being forbidden to express their views about gay and lesbian issues, and laws that allow them to join a gay-straight alliance.
If Your Child is Harassed
Every child has the right to feel safe at school no matter what the students, parents or even school administrators in your community happen to think about your sexual orientation. Moreover, every school is responsible for maintaining an environment in which all children, including the children of lesbian and gay parents, are able to learn. To this end, some schools have policies that explicitly bar harassment on the basis of sexual orientation. There also are laws in every state that bar anyone from physically harassing or assaulting another individual, regardless of the person's age or sexual orientation. And recently, two federal laws have been successfully used to hold schools responsible for protecting lesbian and gay students from general harassment (such as intimidation and physical violence) and sexual harassment, such as demeaning or graphic comments, unwanted touching or obscene gestures. They are: the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.The equal protection clause. The U.S. Constitution requires that every citizen receive the "equal protection of the laws;" many state constitutions echo this commitment. What this means for students who are harassed because their parents are gay or lesbian, or because they themselves are perceived to be gay or lesbian, is this:
Once you inform school officials that your child has been harassed, they must take reasonable action to protect your child, or both the officials and the district may be liable for not providing equal protection to all their students. In general, it is important to communicate this in writing and not only to a classroom teacher but a school official, such as a principal or vice principal, according to a Lambda Legal report on the subject. For more information, see Lambda's article, "Stopping the Anti-Gay Abuse of Students in Public Schools: A Legal Perspective".
Case in point: In the early 1990s in Ashland, Wis., a student named Jamie Nabozny was harassed by his peers for four years because he was gay. In 1996, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on his behalf.
The result:
"In an historic, first-of-its-kind case, the jury found that Jamie's public school principals during middle school and high school were liable to him for violating his constitutional rights to equal protection from harm by repeatedly refusing to come to his aid when he was beat up in school for being gay," wrote Patrica M. Logue, Lambda co-counsel.
"Moreover, hours after the jury verdict, the two sides reached agreement on a nearly $1 million settlement, a figure further punctuating the message that there is a high price to pay for ignoring abuse of lesbian and gay students."
In other words, this landmark case and a number of others since have made the point to school administrators nationwide that gay and lesbian students deserve the same protection that other students receive. While there is little case law to date on the harassment of the children of lesbian and gay parents, it appears that they, too, would be covered under the equal protection clause, since it has been shown to protect the victims of anti-gay harassment, whether they, themselves, are gay or not.
Title IX
A federal law known as "Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681," more commonly called "Title IX," prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender in school programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance (that is, in most public school programs and activities).
While Title IX does not protect young people from derogatory language, such as being called "faggot" or "dyke," it does protect them from sexually explicit behaviors that may be directed at them because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation. Specifically, the law defines sexual harassment as situations in which:
"a student is subjected to unwanted verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual' s education by creating an intimidating, hostile or sexually offensive educational environment."
This includes incidents of harassment that are directed against boys or girls and that stem from members of the same or the opposite sex, whether they be students or school employees, such as teachers, administrators or other staff.
For example, harassment under Title IX might include incidents against students who are sexually harassed because they are perceived to be gay or lesbian, as Lambda Legal attorney David Buckel has written, or, by extension, because their parents are gay or lesbian. (For more information, read Lambda's "Youth Bring Gay Rights Movement to School" article.
Title IX makes school officials responsible for stopping sexual harassment as they are informed about it. If they do not take appropriate action, they may be liable for damages.
