Tehachapi Teenager’s Suicide Underscores Urgent Need for Schools to Uphold Legal Obligations to Protect LGBTQ Students from Harassment

LOS ANGELES – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California today announced the launch of the Seth Walsh Students’ Rights Project (“Seth Walsh Project”) — a major new initiative aimed at combating bullying and discrimination in California schools, particularly harassment directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students.

The creation of the Seth Walsh Project was prompted by the September 2010 suicide of Seth Walsh, a thirteen-year-old eight-grade student at Tehachapi’s Jacobsen Middle School.  Since coming out as gay in the sixth grade, Seth was subjected to severe verbal harassment based on his sexual orientation and refusal to conform to traditional gender stereotypes. 

“No mother should ever have to lose their child to intolerance and anti-gay harassment, especially when it occurs in a place that should be providing them with an education and putting them on a path to a promising future,” said Wendy Walsh, mother of Seth.  “I am so proud and think it is phenomenal that the ACLU of Southern California has chosen to name their students’ rights project after my beautiful, loving son, Seth.”

Attorneys, community organizers, and policy advocates in the Seth Walsh Project will investigate incidents of harassment and discrimination; educate administrators and teachers of their responsibilities under both state and federal law to make sure all students have a safe learning environment; and work closely with LGBTQ students and their parents to ensure they have the same educational opportunities as their peers.  The ACLU/SC’s Seth Walsh Project will also work with other civil rights organizations in California to conduct community education events about pending legislation aimed at curbing anti-gay harassment and discrimination, including the Student Non-Discrimination Act and Seth’s Law.

“As a gay man who attended public schools in rural Tennessee in the 1970’s and 80’s, I know firsthand how painful anti-gay bullying can be; for such harassment to continue against LGBTQ students thirty years later is unthinkable,” said James Gilliam, deputy executive director of the ACLU of Southern California and director of the newly-established Seth Walsh Project.  “School districts, teachers, and administrators have a legal obligation to ensure that LGBTQ students are safe at school, and we intend to hold them to that duty.”

According to recent studies, as many as nine in ten LGBTQ students have been the victim of harassment based on their real or perceived sexual orientation or nonconforming gender identity.  Nearly two-thirds of such students reported feeling unsafe at school.  Seth’s was one of at least eleven LGBTQ teen suicides that occurred last fall that captured enough media attention to push anti-gay bullying and “bullycide” into the national conversation.

“All students have a right to attend school in a safe learning environment, and their parents have a right to know their children will come home unharmed,” said Hector Villagra, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “Far too often, teachers and administrators discount—or worse, ignore entirely—incidents of violence happening right under their noses.  The Seth Walsh Project aims to correct this crisis and will save lives,” said Villagra. 

The ACLU of Southern California’s Seth Walsh Project is generously supported in part by donations from the David Bohnett Foundation and the It Gets Better Project.

The Seth Walsh Project: The Bullying Stops Here!

The ACLU of Southern California joined advocates and community members at a rally at the Governor’s downtown Los Angeles office today urging California legislators to pass a fair and humane budget that includes crucial revenue solutions. On the constitutional deadline to pass the state budget, ACLU/SC Executive Director Hector Villagra called on legislators to “stand strong and support Californians by voting for a budget with revenue solutions that respect human life and dignity.” One important revenue solution includes passing safe and sensible sentencing reforms that save California money.

To balance the budget, we need to balance our priorities. Slashing funds for education and health care, while billions in prison spending remains untouched is morally bankrupt.

Read Villagra’s full statement here.

Today -- June 14 -- is Flag Day.  The flag is a powerful symbol to many people, both in and of itself and how it's displayed.In 2010, the ACLU of Southern California sued the Veterans Administration on behalf of Vietnam veteran Robert Rosebrock after VA police prevented him from displaying the American flag upside down on the gates of the West Los Angeles VA facility -- in protest of the VA's failure to use the 387 acres to help the neediest of homeless veterans.  Last month, a judge ruled that the VA did indeed violate Rosebrock's right to free speech. His observations on Flag Day are below.

Celebrating the Flag

As a veteran and patriot, the American flag is deeply significant to me.  Flying the flag is a wonderful way for me to express how much I love this country.  But the flag can also be a potent symbol of more than just patriotism.  The United States Flag Code provides that the flag may be displayed union side down to send a message of distress to life and property.  (The union on the flag is the blue portion with a star for each of the fifty states).  Sailors on ships in distress have displayed the flag union down, but others like me have displayed the flag this way as a form of political protest.

For more than 3 years I have stood outside the almost 400 acre Veterans Administration campus in West Los Angeles every Sunday with other veterans and concerned citizens, to protest the VA’s failure to use the land for the purposes for which it was given to the United States in 1888.  Instead of using the land to care for and to shelter veterans in need, particularly homeless veterans, the VA has entered into land use deals that allow more than 100 acres of the campus to be used as a rental car lot, a hotel laundromat, and athletic fields for a local private school.  Meanwhile homeless veterans can be seen sleeping on the streets right outside the VA’s campus.

After protesting for more than a year while the VA continued to ignore the plight of homeless veterans, I began to hang the flag union down to express that the land was in danger, as were the veterans who needed the kind of care and shelter that the VA should be providing there.  This display attracted much attention, and when people asked me and other veterans why we were hanging the flag that way, they almost universally expressed their support for our message and our cause.  And now, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a number of veterans groups challenging the VA’s failure to use the land to meet the needs of homeless and disabled veterans.  So our distress message has been answered and now justice is being pursued.

So, on Flag Day, I want to take this opportunity to honor the flag and salute the power of the messages it can express.