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School Officials over Anti-Gay Harassment High School Teen Forced to Change Schools After 3 Death Threats Suffered Daily Indignities in the Bluegrass State's Eastern District |
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By David Williams
The Letter
Eastern District of Kentucky--Bradley Putman, a former student at Somerset High School in the
southeastern Kentucky community of Somerset, filed a complaint for damages in
the Eastern District of Kentucky March 24 against the Somerset Independent School
District, superintendent Monte E. Chance, and several agents and employees
for depriving him of his "constitutional and statutory rights to be free from
sexual harassment, to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex and to
be free from discrimination on the basis of his actual or perceived sexual
orientation."
The suit arises from numerous instances of harassment against Putman because of his perceived homosexual orientation. Putman's suit says the harassment, which occurred while he was attending Somerset High in 1997-1998, took the form of "hostile, offensive, threatening and unwelcome verbal, visual and physical conduct of a sexual nature" on almost a daily basis. On at least three separate occasions, he also received death threats. When he returned to the same school for the 1998-99 school year, Putman's suit says the harassment started up again. His parents decided to move into another school district so that Putman could be educated in a harassment-free atmosphere.
The second incident involved a neon spraypainted drawing of two male stick figures on the surface of the high school's parking lot. The drawing showed the two figures engaged in a sexual act. Beneath it were painted the words, "This is for you Brad Butman [sic]." When Putman's father complained about it to the principal, Ray Vater, the lawsuit says Vater didn't have the drawing removed for four days. On numerous occasions during the 1997-98 academic year, Putman and his parents brought the problem to the attention of school officials at Somerset High but, according to the complaint, were continually rebuffed. Putman charges that Vater continually refused to meet with him or his parents for many months, instead referring him to assistant principal Sharon Flowers. Putman says Flowers told him on several occasions that she didn't know what she could do. On one occasion, he says she told him to simply "hold his head high." On another occasion he says she told him to "not pay any attention to these students." When Putman and his mother talked to school counselor Marshall Judy about the harassment, they allege that Judy responded simply, "Boys will be boys." Michael LaFavers, the school board chairman, never responded to a letter about the harassment which was sent to him by Putman's parents. The suit charges that the defendants refused to enforce or have enforced their own disciplinary, anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies to prevent harm to Putman. Putman charges a violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, Title IX of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 1-3 of the Kentucky Constitution, and Kentucky Revised Statutes chapter 344, the state civil rights laws. He seeks damages in an unspecified amount, and a trial by jury. Over the last five years, several similar cases have been filed by former gay and lesbian students against other school systems nationwide, including one in Kentucky which was successfully tried in favor of the plaintiff in a suit against the Spencer County school system in 1998. Attorneys for Putman are John Frith Stewart and Everett C. Hoffman of Louisville. |
