Classmates taunted ballroom dancer, 12, perceived as gay
by Simone Sebastian, April 16th, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle
The father of a Pacifica seventh-grader has filed a $10 million
lawsuit against the school district, saying that for two years
administrators did nothing to protect his son as classmates taunted
and abused him because they thought he was gay.
Mark Shaposhnikov said his 12-year-old son, an internationally
competitive ballroom dancer and straight-A student at Ingrid B. Lacy
Middle School, was repeatedly called "faggot," kicked and pushed by
other students and had gum thrown in his hair. The harassment peaked last year, when a few students began telling his son they were going to kill him, Shaposhnikov said. "He was depressed, saying he hated his life and he was sorry he was born," said Shaposhnikov, a 44-year-old small-business owner. "I trusted (school officials) to protect my son. But every time I ask
them to do something, they do nothing."
The lawsuit claims that the Pacifica School District "ignored the
seriousness of the problem" and that when officials did discipline
the students tormenting his son, it was "feeble and purposefully
ineffective." Ten students and their parents are also listed as defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed April 1 in federal court in San Francisco.
The taunting began the first week of sixth grade, Shaposhnikov said.
Classmates blocked the boy from entering the boys' bathroom, telling
him he belonged in the girls' and said, "Gay people do not achieve
anything high in life," according to claims Shaposhnikov filed
against the school. The boy, who has won national awards during his seven years of ballroom dancing, stopped attending gym class, where much of the
teasing took place.
Instead of punishing the students, Shaposhnikov said, teachers and
administrators made the situation worse, reprimanding his son for
seeking legal assistance and announcing during class that a student
had taken legal action against the school. The school did not name
the boy, but many students assumed it was Shaposhnikov's son, and the
teasing escalated, he said. "Because he's perceived as gay, they're letting the harassment go on," said Paul Smoot, Shaposhnikov's attorney. "He's received three death threats, and the teachers do absolutely nothing."
An attorney for the district, John Shupe, said officials had taken
appropriate moves to deal with the harassment. Administrators have
said they contacted the offending students' parents and suspended at
least four. "No matter what the school did, the parents weren't satisfied," Shupe said. Faculty "will not let the lawsuit have an impact on how they
deal with this student. They will continue to treat him appropriately
and fairly."
District Superintendent Michele Garside said home-room teachers
recited policies on sexual harassment at the beginning of every
school year and enforced district guidelines on how to handle
complaints. Schools have several programs to ward off bullying, she
said, and more are in the works. "Parents want it stopped immediately," Garside said in a December interview, after Shaposhnikov filed his third of six claims against the school. "I don't disagree that it should be stopped. I don't
disagree that it's wrong. But there's a process of learning how to
relate appropriately to others and how to deflect these things. It's
part of emotional development."
The lawsuit is not the first time the Pacifica School District has
been accused of allowing discrimination against a student perceived
by peers to be gay. In 1997, a 12-year-old boy who took tap-dancing classes sued the district -- then the Laguna Salada Union School District -- after
what he said were years of being the target of anti-gay epithets. The
district settled for $160,000, promised to institute harassment
awareness programs for administrators and faculty and designate two
teachers in every school to help students who are targets of anti-gay
bullying, an agreement that Shaposhnikov says the district has failed
to stick to.
Kristina Krow, the boy's mother, said Shaposhnikov's son was
suffering teasing identical to what her son had experienced. Instead
of targeting the offenders, she said, administrators targeted her
son, leading him to become depressed, lose weight and threaten
suicide. "They like to think it's the victim's problem, and if he changed, it
wouldn't happen," she said.
In 2002, the mother of a student at Ortega Middle School filed a $1
million claim against the district, saying it hadn't dealt with
anti-gay harassment of her son. The district denied the claim, and
the student's mother removed the boy from Pacifica public schools.
Garside said the problem of anti-gay taunting was not unique to the
Pacifica School District. She said it was a societal problem and
difficult for educators to head off. A 2002 study by the National Mental Health Association found that 78 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds reported having seen students tease or bully others who are gay or believed to be gay. "The reality is that poking at other people is fairly common in
society," Garside said. "It's not on any one campus. It's everywhere.
We have attended very, very seriously to addressing the educational
needs around these sensitive issues."
