Minneapolis school district sued by national groups - sexual orientation bullying

Two national civil rights groups and a Minneapolis law firm filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Anoka-Hennepin School District on behalf of five current and former students who say they were bullied at school because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation.

Outside a Champlin middle school Thursday morning, the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights and Faegre & Benson law firm announced that the suit had been filed in U.S. District Court against Minnesota's largest school district.

It seeks to end the district's sexual orientation curriculum policy, also known as the neutrality policy, and seeks compensation for the students who say they were repeatedly bullied because they were gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or perceived to be GLBT.

"The Anoka-Hennepin School District, where we stand today, has refused to take a stand against harassment and bullying," said Mary Bauer, the legal director at the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. "This policy sends a message to kids that who they are is not OK. Our plaintiffs have stood up and said no more."

The announcement comes a day after the school district released a statement acknowledging that federal authorities have been investigating the district since November after a compliant or complaints of student bullying. In the statement Wednesday, the district also said it wanted to work with the two national civil rights groups to resolve concerns about the policy instead of going into costly litigation.

"We feel that it would be better to put our energy and resources into materials for training students and all staff that would be more effective than what we're doing," district spokeswoman Mary Olson said Thursday.

Sam Wolfe, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said they met with the school district once after their May request. But refusal by the school board to get rid of the policy is a "nonstarter" for further discussions, he said.

"There is a great sense of urgency that this problem needs to be addressed," Wolfe said. "We can't really wait for the federal government to go through their process. It's important with school starting again ... that we really need to move forward now."

The sexual orientation curriculum policy allows teachers to discuss issues related to sexual orientation in the classroom but requires them to maintain neutrality -- the only local school district known to have such a policy.

District leaders maintain that the policy is appropriate because the community is split on GLBT issues.

Bullying has been a high-profile issue in the district over the past year.

Last fall, after a number of student suicides in the 38,000-student Anoka-Hennepin district, GLBT advocates argued that some deaths stemmed from bullying because of real or perceived GLBT orientation. In December, the district said an investigation into six teen suicides had found no links to bullying.


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