MI: Parents can sue over boy's harassment at school

By ED WHITE Associated Press Writer
2:03 PM CST, January 6, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-school-harassment,0,1773177.story

DETROIT - An appeals court gave new life Tuesday to a lawsuit that claims a Michigan school district didn't do enough to prevent the harassment of a student, whose humiliation began in sixth grade and escalated to sexual assault by his freshman year.

Hudson Area Schools, in Lenawee County near the Ohio border, said it punished and even expelled students who committed the offenses.

But an appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, said the boy's parents can press their allegation that the district was "deliberately indifferent" to years of abuse inflicted by classmates.

The decision means the lawsuit will go to trial in federal court or be settled. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff had ruled in favor of the district and dismissed the case in 2007.

"Hudson's isolated success with individual perpetrators cannot shield Hudson from liability as a matter of law," said Judges Karen Nelson Moore and Helene White of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The other judge on the panel, C. Roger Vinson, said his colleagues went too far.

"A school acts appropriately if it investigates what has already occurred, reasonably tries to end any harassment still ongoing by the offenders, and seeks to prevent the offenders from engaging in such conduct again," Vinson wrote. "That is exactly what happened."

Moore and White come "extremely close to requiring that schools be 'purged' of all offensive behavior and be completely harassment-free," he said.

In 2002, when the boy was in sixth grade, classmates called him "queer" and "pig" on a daily basis and pushed him into lockers. He said he reported it to school officials but was told "kids will be kids, it's middle school."

His parents talked to teachers about the problem and met with the principal.

DP, as the boy is identified in court documents, wanted to quit school in seventh grade. The situation improved in eighth grade when he spent one period a day with a teacher who helped him cope with peers and work on his studies.

But ninth grade was not successful: Hudson High would not allow DP to continue his one-on-one contact with the teacher. He was called names again, and students broke into his gym locker and urinated on his clothes.

That same year, a baseball player cornered him in the locker room and rubbed his genitals on DP's neck and face. Mentally unable to step inside a Hudson school after the assault, DP received an alternative education and graduated last June.

Hudson attorney Timothy Mullins said "every single student" who harassed the boy and could be identified was punished.

"Our position is the school was effectively responding to the harassment," Mullins said. "Where does the liability pass from the person who committed the harassment to the institution?"

Terry Heiss, a lawyer for DP's parents, said the boy has taken college classes but is "struggling."

"I'm very pleased with the result," Heiss said of the appeals court. "Let it go to the jury."