MORGAN HILL
– Six former Morgan Hill School District students will split
$500,000 and see all district employees and students undergo
anti-gay harassment training.
MORGAN HILL – Six former Morgan Hill School District students will split $500,000 and see all district employees and students undergo anti-gay harassment training.
The American Civil Liberties Union announced the settlement of the five-year-old Flores vs. MHUSD case at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday morning after the remaining details were worked out in the San Jose courtroom of federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ware.
The settlement, according to the ACLU office in San Francisco, includes “a comprehensive training program for administrators, staff and students to combat anti-gay harassment.” It also included a $1.1 million damage award, to be split between the six plaintiffs and to cover costs and attorneys’ fees, Superintendent Carolyn McKennan said after the announcement.
MHSD trustee Shellé Thomas said that, in accepting the terms of the settlement, the district was not accepting any liability in the matter.
“This is not an admission of guilt,” Thomas said.
McKennan said the district decided to settle without going to trial because, if it went to trial and the district lost, they would be liable for the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees, an amount estimated to be $3 million.
The money, McKennan explained, will be paid by a Joint Powers Authority the district belongs to, a consortium of school districts that join together, essentially to share risks – a self-insuring agency. She said school districts are generally unable to secure insurance policies that would shield them from such lawsuits. Gilroy Unified School District is also a member of the group.
The students, through their original attorney, Diane Ritchie, have always maintained their primary objective was not the money but to secure appropriate training so future students perceived to be gay would have an easier time in school.
During the past five years, only former student Alana Flores was willing to have her name used publicly. At Tuesday’s hearing, Freddie Fuentes and Jeanette Dousharm added their names to hers.
McKennan said Alana Flores would receive $150,000; Freddie Fuentes and Jeanette Dousharm, $100,000 each; two unnamed plaintiffs $80,000 each and the final student, $50,000.
Ann Brick, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California who worked on the case, told Judge Ware that the students were happy about the settlement.
“This is quite a moment for them,” Brick said.
All district administrators, teachers, campus monitors, custodians, school safety officers and bus drivers will undergo an annual sensitivity training program designed around issues of harassment and discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity.
Students will take part in an age-appropriate program on the same issues, and the district will put in place an anti-discrimination policy barring harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
In April 2003, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision proclaimed as historic by the ACLU, insisting that Morgan Hill (and other) schools give equal protection to all students. By August 2003, the case had been appealed several times by the school district but had never gone to trial. Then, the two sides agreed to pursue a settlement.
The case, filed in April 1998 named district Superintendent Carolyn McKennan; Bob Davis who was interim Live Oak principal; Delia Schizzano, assistant principal; Maxine Bartschi, assistant principal at Live Oak; Rick Gaston, a Live Oak assistant principal; Larry Carr, now a city councilman but then president of the school board; Susan Choi, Del Foster, Jan Masuda, Tom Kinoshita, John Kennett and Rick Herder, all school board members; and Don Schaefer and Frank Nucci, principal and assistant principal, respectively, at Martin Murphy Middle School.
Ritchie explained why she thought the district fought the lawsuit for so long and refused to add anti-gay harassment training to the curriculum.
“Carolyn McKennan was unwilling to believe there were any gay students (in the district) or, if there were, could see no problems. Then she said, ‘We’re in a lawsuit and can’t make any changes.’ ”
McKennan has maintained throughout the suit’s course that staff and students did receive training and the district took sufficient actions to protect students. On Tuesday, both McKennan and Thomas said they were happy to put the lawsuit behind them.
“It was a good deal for both of us,” McKennan said. “Now we can move forward.”
