A video taken of a San Diego 14-year-old in the bathroom went viral, and now his parents are taking legal action against their son’s school district.After two weeks of bullying over the video, Matthew took his own life.
“Kids saw this video and began to tease Matthew mercilessly—they teased him, they harassed him,” said attorney Allison Worden, who is representing the family. “They made his life miserable over a two-week period.”University City High School, where Matthew went to school, launched an internal investigation into the incident. However, Matthew’s family reported that the school would not tell them if the student who took the video was disciplined. Board of Education President Kevin Beiser said Matthew’s situation was discussed at length by the board and that they would recommend district policy changes based on the tragic events. (But the school district would not respond to questions about whether or not it took action against the boy who filmed the video.)
The Burdette family has filed a claim against the San Diego Unified School for $1 million.
Worden says the school district failed to respond appropriately under the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act.
The California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in California public schools. The Act provides several recommendations for preventing bullying and harassment in schools, including:
Create and distribute a model anti-slur, anti-harassment policy approved by the California Department of Education that explicitly includes sexual orientation and gender identity
Develop and offer specific training for coaches, physical education teachers, crisis counselors, crisis response teams, school police, school security officers, school counselors, nurses, and parents/guardians
Provide guidance to all school personnel on the new law and the school district policy on responding to climate-setting incidents or harassment and violence
Worden also argues that the school district disregarded the Safe Place To Learn Act, which was passed to enhance enforcement of the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act.
“Current law prohibits harassment and other forms of discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender (including gender identity), disability, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion and other characteristics in California schools, but many districts are failing to address this critical safety issue or adequately comply with the law,” the act states.
The Safe Place to Learn Report, which was published by the 4-H Center for Youth Development at the University of California-Davis, found that the discrimination problem was pervasive and ongoing.
According to the report:
- 14.3 percent of all students report harassment because of their race or ethnicity
- 9.1 percent of all students report harassment because of their religion
- 7.5 percent of all students report being harassed on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation
“This means that over 200,000 students are harassed because they are gay or lesbian or someone thought they were, and nearly 400,000 students are harassed because of their race,” -according to a release from Equality California.The Safe Place To Learn Act set up a monitoring program to ensure that safety standards are actually being met for students in California schools.