Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
A 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel has ruled in favor of a student who claims that officials at Hudson middle school in Southeast Michigan were deliberately indifferent and failed to take any action to stop systemic harassment from other students - and even from at least one teacher.
The appeals court ruling does not settle the case, it merely remands it back to the district court for a full trial. The district court had granted summary judgment to the school, avoiding a full trial. The student's attorneys appealed, arguing that the district court had erred in concluding that the school was not intentionally ignoring the harassment problem; the appeals court agreed and has ordered the district court to hold a full trial on the matter.
The facts in the case, as stated in the appeals court ruling, are quite disturbing. The student, who is referred to in the ruling only by his initials, DP, was apparently the victim of constant harassment from his classmates beginning in the sixth grade, including frequent taunts of "queer" and "faggot" aimed at him. And in at least one incident cited by the court, a teacher joined in on the abuse:
On one occasion, DP attempted to stop a female classmate, BC, from tormenting another student. In response, BC slapped DP. Though, upon learning about the incident, band teacher Crystal Bough, told DP she "w[ould] take care of it," the Pattersons were never contacted by the school, nor did Ms. Bough report the incident to the principal. The Pattersons learned from DP that he had been assaulted at school. This incident led to further teasing, including teasing from geography teacher John Redding, who asked DP later that same day in front of a full class of students: "[H]ow does it feel to be hit by a girl[?]" The class laughed at DP.
The harassment from his fellow students came in many forms, most of them anti-gay slurs and references to "Mr. Clean," apparently referring to the student's lack of pubic hair. The bullying was not merely verbal, however:
In March 2005, unknown students broke into DP's gym locker, removed his clothes and urinated on them, and threw his tennis shoes in the toilet. The locker was also "covered with shaving cream spelling out sexually oriented words." Later that spring, two students, KM and JL, hung a "Mr. Clean" poster on DP's locker in the main hallway...At some point after the "Mr. Clean" incident, DP's locker in the main hallway was vandalized by unknown students. These students used permanent markers and wrote words such as "gay," "faggot," and "queer" up and down the locker. Additionally, a picture of a penis being inserted into a rectum was drawn on the locker. The inside of the locker was also defaced with various derogatory phrases, such as "suck your mother's tits" and "you suck dicks."
And it even went so far as actual sexual assault:
The final incident of harassment occurred in late May 2005. After Friday night junior-varsity baseball practice, DP was sexually assaulted by a fellow teammate, LP, in the locker room. LP stripped naked, forced DP into a corner, jumped on DP's shoulders, and rubbed his penis and scrotum on DP's neck and face. While the assault was occurring, another student, NH, blocked the exit so DP could not escape.
While the student was expelled for this and brought up on charges for the assault, the ruling reports that the baseball coach held a team meeting with DP present at which he told the students that they should "not joke around with guys who can't take a man joke."
The victim is so scarred by all of this that he can no longer set foot inside the school without panic attacks. The case will now go back to the district court for a full trial on whether the school "failed to implement and enforce meaningful procedures to ensure compliance with federal law and the policies of [Hudson] and failed to ensure the proper education and training of staff as to harassment issues."
Terry Heiss, an Ada attorney who represented the plaintiffs in the case, told me that the family is grateful for the opportunity to have their day in court: "I believe the 6th circuit court of appeals effectively and carefully reviewed the record and did a good analysis of the interplay between the summary judgment rules and the Supreme Court cases in this area. My clients are pleased with that analysis."
When asked if he was concerned that the case would be heard by the same judge that initially rejected their case, Heiss noted that the trial will be in front of a jury and that he has confidence in the judge's impartiality, saying, "I think Judge Zatkoff will give us a very fair trial. I don't think the fact that his initial decision was reversed will affect his judgment at all."
Glenn Stutzky, an associate professor of social work at MSU, was an expert in this case. He could not speak with me about the specifics of the case but he did tell us that bullying is a very serious problem in schools with extremely pernicious effects:
The important thing to understand about bullying is that it's a form of abuse. And until we grasp that, we're not going to be able to deal with it effectively. Bullying in schools is the same dynamic that occurs in domestic violence in the home, it's exactly the same set of circumstances and interactions between two people in which violence and abuse are used to dominate and control another individual. The AMA has concluded that bullying impact kids as much as child abuse, drug addiction and early sexual encounters. The impacts include increased absences, physical and medical problems from the stress and anxiety, eating and sleeping problems, academic problems. These are all now well documented in research. But it can affect the entire school because students pushed to extremes by such bullying may take their own life or may take the lives of their tormenters, as happened in the Columbine incident.
Stutzky noted that this ruling comes close on the heels of the failure of a bill in the Michigan legislature, Matt's Safe School Law, that would have required schools to have programs to deal with bullying:
Bullying that is not dealt with comprehensively and systemically will always increase rather than staying at the level it's at. The state legislature had an opportunity to deal with this on a statewide basis and failed. The reality is that a lot of schools do not have any kind of specific policy dealing with bullying. And like with any other type of serious situation, we need good legislation to provide greater safety and a means for dealing with it when it does happen. We need this legislation passed so that the state stands up and recognizes that this is a serious problem and we need to address this.
That bill was named for Matt Epling, a young man from East Lansing who took his own life in 2002 after serious hazing from classmates. As the Lansing State Journal reported on Sunday, the bill had broad bipartisan support but was prevented from getting a vote in the state Senate by Majority Leader Alan Cropsey (R-Dewitt).
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Comments
A "man joke?" I'm not aware of any "man jokes" that involve someone placing their genitals on me in any way whatsoever. Why is it that people who harass someone for allegedly being gay always seem to assault them in a manner that strikes me as very gay.
Ed, what reason did Cropsey give for preventing the vote? A number of states have passed guidelines/laws, etc., addressing bullying. We've had a major policy/program in the district where I work for three ... perhaps four years(?). It's amazing the mental disconnect some people have ... the kids involved in many of the incidents of school violence were the victims of bullying yet so many people, when they hear/read about these incidents and efforts to halt them act as if the victims not only have no rights, but that they are also somehow responsible for the assaults and are to be blamed for not just "taking it" or "fighting back." It's the same basic mindset as people who think that women who are raped somehow were "asking for it."
Totally f'd up mindset.
Posted by: dogmeatib | January 8, 2009 9:55 AM
The folks who claimed that this kid couldn't 'take a man's joke' are also the same kind of people who say things like, "She was asking for it," or, "Some women need to be beat down sometimes." It's much easier to blame the victim for their abuse than to address the underlying social problems that cause people to become abusers in the first place. That requires thinking and people hate to think. *sigh* I fear for the human race most days.
Posted by: Echo | January 8, 2009 10:05 AM
Pack-like behavior. Remember this story the next time a creationist acts insulted at the idea of having evolved from lower life forms.
Posted by: Taz | January 8, 2009 10:32 AM
As a long time teacher, I can say with certainty that this sort of bullying is common, and every bit as destructive as the experts say it is.
however, a couple of things about this story are curious to me.
First, the initials reference for the minor plaintiff is rather spoiled by the reference to his parents as "The Pattersons". If that was intended to protect the boy's identity, well, not so much. On the other hand, his name would be commonly known in the town. Any further harassment? I'd be surprised if there weren't.
Also, Hudson Middle (like most middle schools) is listed as a 6-8 grade school, yet the victim is on the junior varsity baseball team? Is it a consolidated middle-high school where the middle school unit is in the same building? The harassment and violence seems excessive for a middle school, which typically would be very alert to such behavior unless everyone involved is completely out of touch with any educational philosophy or research. The tale is far more plausible (both the educators' indifference and the students' cruelty) in a high school setting (though, please, no less distressing and, I should hope, no less likely to result in numerous firings and steep punitive judgements against everyone concerned.)
I'm looking for a second story line. This in no way reduces the appalling conduct of the school and students, but in my frequent and direct experience, these cases usually involve a student/victim who acts out--who flamboyantly displays the very behaviors that enrage his tormenters. Overtly sexual behavior by a gay student is something that very few public school staff are equipped to handle, and they will often blame the victim. Such behavior gives a young person power in that situation even though it often causes an escalation of the abuse.
It may be that the period of alleged abuse stretched from middle school to high school, but the account feels sloppy and shallow...Ed, I'd like some more links or references. I'm curious.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | January 8, 2009 10:48 AM
ice9 - I think middle schools can have their own varsity and junior varsity sports teams, just like high schools.
Posted by: Taz | January 8, 2009 10:55 AM
dogmeatib:
My old hometown area is near DeWitt; Cropsey (and his family) are highly conservative, (which, in and of itself, doesn't always mean bad things) and is also a real asshole - mean and (in my opinion) not very honest. He opposed this on the excuse that it gave special protection to gays - he argued that they were already protected by existing rules.
Posted by: dean | January 8, 2009 11:35 AM
Hudson Middle School is, literally, just down the road from me, about 15 miles away and in my county. Hudson is a small town of about 2,500 in a rural area, has 10 churches, and is 98% white. It's a pretty town, and the people are your basic nice middle-class midwesterners. Like so many folks in rural areas, however, they tend to be quite conservative.
I'm not sure if the Middle and High schools are combined. They are adjacent to each other, but have separate street addresses.
The problem in a trial, of course, is that these same folks are more or less the jury pool, although the trial will be held in my town--with its whopping 22,000 population of middle-class Midwestern conservatives. What the lawyer needs to do is shift the focus away from the issue of the students sexual identity and get the jury to think, "What if your kid was being harassed and the school didn't do anything about it?"
As to the "manly joke," how many of us think the baseball coach would be laughing if a male teacher had rubbed his penis on the coach's face? Methinks he would be calling the offender a faggot.
Posted by: James Hanley | January 8, 2009 11:38 AM
I am sorry to say that I had the misfortune to transfer to Hudson near the end of my junior year, and graduated from HHS. My experiences were similar, but not nearly as egregious as those experienced by this boy. My sister was thrown into the pond, destroying a new pair of shoes. I was taunted for professing atheism (when asked about my religion). That is, once I explained the meaning of "atheism" to those knuckle-dragging hicks. These anecdotes are entirely consistent with my own experiences, and completely credible to me.
Posted by: TGAP Dad | January 8, 2009 11:52 AM
The opinion is here. The incident with the baseball team was in ninth grade.
Bullies will go after anyone who reacts badly to it. Gay-themed insults are just part of the repertoire for teenage boys.
Posted by: wer | January 8, 2009 12:15 PM
Unless the legislation specifies that people like that piece of stinking garbage that calls itself a coach must be fired and prevented from working anywhere where he may have contact with children for the rest of his life, it will be a fucking joke.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | January 8, 2009 12:42 PM
Are you kidding? What special "equippage" is necessary? You treat his sexual behavior the same way you'd treat a heterosexual kids'. If its not appropriate for school, you tell him to knock it off. If it is appropriate and you just don't like seeing it, tough beans for you. Learn to put up with it. Aren't equipped. Pfeh. These staffers need to learn basic human civil behavior.
Posted by: eric | January 8, 2009 12:56 PM
All of these "man jokes" brings back great memories of work. We'd be sitting in a board room discussing the budget and how to fit customer requirements into our new software release when suddenly we'd notice that Jim had scrawled obscenities on Alex's laptop before screaming "faggot" and shoving him into the wall. We all laughed until Jim was escorted out by security and arrested for assault, that killed the mood.
Next time the CFO presents our fiscal quarter results we should strip him naked and sexually assault him. You know, just 'cause we're men and that's what we do.
Posted by: Adrian | January 8, 2009 1:39 PM
This is why I want to punch people for using the inherently dismissive epithet "teasing."
Posted by: Azkyroth | January 8, 2009 2:13 PM
And we wonder why "Social Darwinism" is such a persistent meme...
BTW, anyone see the recent, ineffably irritating NYT Sunday Mag article in defense of "teasing?:"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/magazine/07teasing-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=teasing&st=cse
Bleah.
Diane, teasee
Posted by: Diane G | January 8, 2009 3:02 PM
I was tormented in middle school for being gay, though not nearly so horrifically as this kid. The thing is, I had just hit puberty, and naturally began having feelings for other boys and flirting without even thinking about it. Not surprisingly, repeatedly being called a "faggot" taught me the perils of being true to oneself.
Whether this kid is gay or not, there is nothing forgivable about how he was treated, and neither the teachers' nor the students' behavior can be explained away. I hope he wins the case and walks away with enough money to go to a good, private school.
Posted by: Larry | January 8, 2009 3:29 PM
I was tormented in middle school for being gay, though not nearly so horrifically as this kid. The thing is, I had just hit puberty, and naturally began having feelings for other boys and flirting without even thinking about it. Not surprisingly, repeatedly being called a "faggot" taught me the perils of being true to oneself.
Whether this kid is gay or not, there is nothing forgivable about how he was treated, and neither the teachers' nor the students' behavior can be explained away. I hope he wins the case and walks away with enough money to go to a good, private school.
Posted by: Larry | January 8, 2009 3:31 PM
Azkyroth, as a girl I was teased and bullied a LOT. It always befuddles me when people say "but it's just teasing! Kids bully all the time, it's normal!"
No, it's not. It's violent and it's abuse. Period.
Posted by: marilove | January 8, 2009 3:32 PM
My son who is is a heterosexual often hears taunts of Faggot , queer ,(his usual reply is "well while i appreciate the offer, i am attracted to girls") Satan etc . because he currently is into the "goth" thing. although most kids wont try him phsyically because he is much larger than they are.(8th grade 6ft ,220). Thankfully the taunts dont bother him. as he said to me "so what if they call me gay , if i was i would still be smarter than most of them nor would i be such an ignorant prick" Thankfully my son has a socail conscience and understands that their is Nothing wrong wth Homosexuals .
was the girl that assualted this young boy ever suspended. or was it simply looked over. because it was a female assualt on a male ?
Posted by: VicVanity | January 8, 2009 3:44 PM
Posted by: Dave | January 8, 2009 4:27 PM
ice9: "...in my frequent and direct experience, these cases usually involve a student/victim who acts out--who flamboyantly displays the very behaviors that enrage his tormenters. Overtly sexual behavior by a gay student is something that very few public school staff are equipped to handle, and they will often blame the victim. Such behavior gives a young person power in that situation even though it often causes an escalation of the abuse."
As eric pointed out, no special training or equipment is needed to deal with overtly sexual behavior by a gay student. More important, though, is to undertand that stereotypically "gay" behavior or dress are NOT sexual behavior. No one claimed that DP made a pass at, had sex with, raped, groped, or exposed himself to someone. His offense was fail to conform his harassers' notion of proper masculinity. This is not sexual behavior.
I truly don't understand the thought process by which some people equate "this person is gay" with "this person is doing something sexual." Are you doing something sexual when you wear a wedding ring, when you mention your girlfriend/boyfriend, or when you display pictures of your children? All of these say more about one's (presumed) sexual behavior than stating "I'm gay" or "I'm straight" does.
Your assertion that "acting out" (whatever that is) somehow empowers a young person, while causing more abuse, is nothing more than blaming the victim. Wrapping it in statements about about how horrible abuse is doesn't change that. Abusers instigate and perpetrate abuse, period. If other students didn't like gay people, or didn't like DP, they were free to avoid him or ignore him. They chose to inflict abuse, and they alone are responsible.
Posted by: Martin | January 8, 2009 4:45 PM
ice9: "these cases usually involve a student/victim who acts out--who flamboyantly displays the very behaviors that enrage his tormenters."
Oh, so that makes the abuse OK then. He was asking for it!
I can only hope, as a teacher myself, that your "frequent and direct experience" is curtailed sooner rather than later.
Posted by: Dr Horrible | January 8, 2009 5:50 PM
As a young gay man, growing up in the south, I was always being embarrassed, teased and bullied in school. I was beaten and harassed every day in and around school (at least it seemed like every day). It was a miserable experience and I suffer from cPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) to this day from it all. I am 53. I am glad it is now being talked about and hope that the kids don't go through what I went through.
Posted by: JeffK | January 8, 2009 7:05 PM
Horrible: Ice9 was explaining the mechanisms of the bullying phenomenon, not endorsing them.
I've worked in Middle Schools. As soon as the staff starts ignoring bullying behavior it starts to increase. To have the school staff join in is just creepy. Yes, DP is only asserting things at this stage, but the allegations are entirely credible.
Posted by: kehrsam | January 8, 2009 9:35 PM
As another "teasee," let me note that for a lot of ignorant midwestern morons, merely being bad and/or uninterested in athletics is sufficient "proof" that a boy is gay, especially if he doesn't have a girlfriend. Effeminate behavior or flamboyant/exotic dress is not required. As with most of you, my bullies never went quite so far, but it was vicious enough, frequent enough, and prolonged enough to make me question my own sexual preference, on the theory that with so many people telling me I was gay, maybe I really was. And just like in this case, there was clear evidence that the teachers knew what was happening, but didn't care enough to put a stop to it - which gives the victim the impression of having no recourse at all.
I'm very sad to see that more than 25 years later, it has only gotten worse.
Posted by: BobApril | January 8, 2009 10:24 PM
When I was in middle school, I was singled out for bullying more than most. I didn't experience anything as extreme as this poor kid (though my locker was broken into--good thing I didn't keep anything in it).
However, I was subject to one assault. An asshole who was a good eight inches taller than me and much stronger wrapped his hands around my throat and lifted me off the ground. He didn't squeeze hard enough to choke me, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that he did it in front of the fucking school office, which was fronted with huge fucking windows.
Yes, that's right. I went to one of the best middle schools in my town. A "magnet" school where students in the gifted and talented program were bussed from all over town. And the goddamn staff didn't give a shit about an assault happening right outside their office.
Okay, I'm done ranting now.
Posted by: Josh in California | January 9, 2009 3:36 AM
Lord of the Flies is real. I encountered this behavior towards me at a summer camp. For some unknown reason, several [like about 8] of the 13-14 year-olds I was a counselor for decided, out of the blue as far as I could discern, to get in my face and start to call me those same anti-gay epithets [I'm not, even if that had anything to do with the case]. Over the course of 3 days it escalated into in-your-face behavior when I kind of flipped, grabbed the leader, pinned him against the wall and screamed at him that "If I were gay, you would be the first to have a bloody asshole" and left the sleeping deck to have a long talk with the head counselor. The other counselors were not present at that time, but I felt that I couldn't stay with them for their safety and mine. All was resolved with apologies all around and some heavy-handed warnings to the miscreants and me.
The reason for the behavior may have been something as simple as me doing yoga on the pool deck before it opened [I was a lifeguard] and I did not try any retaliation other than telling them to shut up.
Boys that age need to recognize the symptoms of testosterone intoxication and how to deal with it in a semi-civilized manner.
Posted by: natural cynic | January 9, 2009 6:08 AM
ice9: My experience with public schools has only been as a student, but from that experience I can attest that such bullying is not typically the result of overt behavior. Any kid who can be easily pointed out as different, in look, action, or even voice, will face this sort of torment if they attend a school that refuses to regulate such behavior; the fact that in today such abuse typically takes the form of gay-bashing is more a result of our society's virulent and wide-spread homophobia than of any act the victims might commit. And sometimes no trigger is even needed; the cause can be as simply as the capricious choice of a popular, bullying child to pick on that individual. The truly infuriating thing about the case is that, even when the victims of this sort of behavior stand up for themselves against their tormentors, it is often they who are labeled a problem and punished.
What I find most despicable about this is that a court must order the so-called adults of this school to do something which they should all feel compelled by nature and social convention to do already; defend children. The callousness, abandonment of responsibility, and lack of any sense of duty towards a child placed within their charge is deplorable.
Josh: This is, unfortunately, all too common. From the way we are raised to think about older generations, and as a desire to believe that humans should know better, one is tempted to say that such things weren't allowed to happen "in the old days", but the truth of it is that in the old days such behavior was considered so acceptable that no one even called it a problem. In a twisted sense, I suppose it shows that we are moving in the right direction which such a case can be remanded for a full trial.
Posted by: Julian | January 9, 2009 8:55 AM
Dave wrote:
This is true, of course, but I spoke to one of the attorneys in the case while writing the article and asked specifically about the two incidents involving staff members and was told none of the incidents that were cited by the court that I cited in the article were being disputed as inaccurate by the school.
Here's something I didn't include in the article: in the incident involving the baseball team, the victim's older brother happens to be the coach of the JV team and the school is trying to put the blame on him for not preventing the attack (he was not present when it happened), but they do not deny that the attack took place.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | January 9, 2009 9:29 AM
All this talk about bullying reminded me of one of my proudest moments in high school. Most of my time in school I subscribed to the theory that the best way to deal with a bully who was targeting you was to ignore them. I thought that if I didn't give them a reaction they'd get bored and stop. Well that, and I was afraid of confrontation. But there was this one bully who never got bored. He would take every opportunity to make my life, and the lives of many others, miserable. There was name-calling. He would try to trip me or spit on me. A couple times he tried to cut off my ponytail. For a year and a half I did my best to ignore and avoid him.
One day, in eleventh grade he again tried to trip me and I'd had enough. I dropped my bag and barked, "What the fuck is your problem?" WHAM! He decked me. I don't know what happen for the next few seconds. But the next thing I knew I was holding him by the throat against a locker. He was up on his tiptoes. WHAM! He hit me again, which is what brought me back to myself. I noticed there was a crowd of students chanting "fight, fight, fight" around us. I realized also that I had been about to squeeze, to crush his windpipe, and that scared me good. I let go.
WHAM! Another blow to my face. But I hardly noticed. I just knew that I didn't want to hurt him. I stepped back so he wasn't cornered against the lockers. "Don't you get it," I asked. WHAM! "I'm not going to fight you." WHAM! "Why do you need to do this?" WHAM! "Did your mother not hug you enough?" WHAM! "Is this what your father does?" WHAM! "Whatever it is go ahead, get it out." WHAM! "I can take it." WHAM! "Give me your pain." WHAM! "But get it all out." WHAM! "Because after this we're done." WHAM! "Got it?" WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! I just stood there.
He stopped, panting from exertion, and looking at me with what I think was disbelief. "Are you done," I asked. He gave one slow nod. "Good," I said, turned around, picked up my bag and walked away. The crowed parted hastily to get out of my way. All the rest of the day people kept coming up to me and saying things like, "I heard you kicked John's ass. Way to go. He's had it coming for a long time" I would try to explain I never threw a punch. But they didn't care. "Whatever you did, good job."
But the important thing, the reason I'm proud, not only did he stop bullying me, but he stopped bullying everyone else as well. I never spoke with him again. So I don't know what changed for him that day. But I like to think that maybe I got through to him.
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 9, 2009 10:08 AM
OMG. how did I miss this? I was putting something together on the bullying bill and found your post.
Just horrible. Poor kid!
Posted by: bug_girl | January 16, 2009 11:32 PM