Justice Department Intervenes In Gay Rights Suit For The First Time In A Decade

[ProSense]

Justice Department Intervenes In Gay Rights Suit For The First Time In A Decade

Yesterday, for the first time in a decade, the Justice Department intervened in a gay rights suit. In August, an openly gay 14-year-old student named Jacob — with the help of the ACLU — sued the Mohawk Central School District in upstate New York because officials “did not appropriately respond to relentless harassment, physical abuse and threats of violence” that Jacob received because of his sexual orientation. NPR reported on some of the harassment to which Jacob alleges he was subjected:

Long before Jacob came out of the closet at age 14, he was harassed for being effeminate. According to court papers, kids threw food at him and told him to get a sex change. One student pulled out a knife and threatened to string Jacob up the flagpole. A teacher allegedly told Jacob to “hate himself every day until he changed.”

One day, Jacob came home from school limping. That evening, he called his father from a party and said he had sprained his ankle at the party.

Sullivan described taking his son to the hospital: “It was a really bad sprain. They put a cast on it, gave him crutches. And shortly after that, I found out that it didn’t happen at the party. It happened at the school, because somebody had pushed him down the stairs.”

Over two years, Sullivan went to his son’s school three or four times a week to talk with the principal. According to court papers, officials did nothing.

The Justice Department is citing Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which protects people against gender discrimination — in its Motion to Intervene. However, the Obama administration is relying on a “broad reading” of Title IX, arguing that “the law also covers discrimination based on gender stereotypes.” In the Motion, the Justice Department argues that the Mohawk District officials also violated the Equal Protection Clause. On Jan. 7, the Assistant Attorney General authorized the federal government’s invention “by certifying that this is a case of general public importance.” Conservative lawyers are arguing against the Obama administration’s approach, saying that it is “making up a legal violation where there hasn’t been one.”

Under Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department has had a dramatically different focus than it did during President Bush’s terms. While the Bush Justice Department was focused on installing political cronies, going after mythical voter fraud cases, and the suppression of minority voters while looking out for the voter disenfranchisement of whites. The Obama Justice Department, by contrast, recently announced that it would also start aggressively going after “banks and mortgage brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in lending.”

[Unvanguard]

1. If there's no "legal violation" right now, it's time to CHANGE THE LAW. n/t

[firedupdem]

2. K&R

A teacher allegedly told Jacob to “hate himself every day until he changed.”

:cry:

[NJmaverick]

3. Change we can believe in! K & R

[donco6]

4. This is good news.

The hope-o-meter just moved up a notch.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Case law does not consider sexual orientation or gender identity as a protected class

The only solution lies in an all-inclusive ENDA.

[mkultra]

9. the equal protection clause is sufficient

employment law is not applicable.

[Smashcut]

19. That's true at the federal level, but states (including CA and MA) are starting to treat orientation

as a suspect classification. CA went so far in its marriage ruling to apply the standard of strict scrutiny to laws that discriminate against GLBT people.

I think the more this issue is sued on, the more authority will develop to treat orientation (rightfully) as a protected class of people and hopefully one day the SCOTUS will adopt the same standard.

[dsc]

6. kudos on Obama

but this story breaks my heart. It speaks to the utter failure of adult gays to protect our children from this harrassment by not passing laws to explicitly forbid it coupled with our understandable fears of being accused of recruiting children. The fact is people my age can tell you stories of similar abuse due to our being gay while growing up. I hope that poor kid is OK but from experience I know he likely isn't.

[ruggerson]

7. Great news

Maybe DOJ is finally starting to get it.

[Arkana]

8. Good on them for doing this, but I think more needs to be done, and soon.

[mkultra]

10. yes, always more always faster Obama

[Arkana]

11. Hey, I'm on YOUR side.

Easy on the insults.

[mkultra]

13. i was supporting you

come on man, MORE FASTER NOW!!!! OBAMA IS TOO SLOW AND INEFFECTIVE. right man. im with you!

[dsc]

14. I will note that a few critics of Obama on these issues have posted in this thread

without dragging our opinions of Obama into this. You decided to do that. We could have pointed out for instance that when the Justice Department intervened opposing our rights the OP and many, many others repeatedly argued that Obama had nothing whatsoever to do with that intervention. Now the OP and I am betting virtually all of the others are perfectly willing to give Obama all the credit for this. I, and the other critics, have been consistent. He deserved the blame for the previous intervention and the credit here. I had hoped to leave that out of this thread, for the record, you brought it here.

[mkultra]

17. actually, my post was satire

and this occasion, much like the other, is all justice department. Confirming my belief that they are doing the job they are supposed to do. Both in this case and in the others. No need to give Obama credit, just like we all told you before, the Justice department is AUTONOMOUS.

[dsc]

18. and it is just idle coincidence that 0 of these cases occured under Bush

and both Clinton and Obama pursued them. Oh, and the story the OP links spells it out explicitly. The GOP person quoted, who worked for Reagan and Bush one, stated unquivically that the case never would have been pursued by a Republican justice department. Obama deserves the credit for this just like he deserved the blame for the other.

[mkultra]

20. if you engage logic sensors

you will recall that bush pushed the DOJ to forward political will which was widely seen as an abuse of constitutional authority. In fact, there where many things your buddy Bush did that where against the law.

[dsc]

21. The guy quoted in the story worked for Reagan and Bush 1 not Bush 2

which I stated in clear, unambiguous text which you directly lied about in your post. The fact is rarely are legal cases clear cut one way or the other. In this case, a case can be easily made on either side. There is no clear cut law saying anti gay harassment is illegal at the federal level, to its credit the Administration is lobbying for such a law in regards to school children, but there is currently no such law. Using the law forbidding gender discrimination in this manner is, to be honest, a stretch. I think it doesn't stretch it to the breaking point and so does the Obama Administration, but the case law is very, very thin here. No Republican Administration would bring a case like this, and not all Republican Administrations politicized the Justice Department to the extent the Bush Administration did, but it isn't politicization to decide, using your political appointees what legal theories you will and won't argue. That is what lawyers do every day.

[mkultra]

22. actually, that is how politilization starts

While the use of gender protection is a stretch, it has been made clear that it probably will not get and traction but the use of the equal protection clause will. Again, in this case, someone is being systematically abused by a public system.

[dsc]

23. In point of fact, case law has more support for the gender issue than the equal protection issue

In the late 1980's or early 1990's a Louisiana man won a sexual harassment case where he was harassed by other men for being percieved to be gay. Equal protections has no case law at all aside from a concurrence by O'Connor in the Lawerence case (the other members of the majority used privacy to overturn sodomy laws).

[mkultra]

24. to be fair

I have no knowledge of title IX being used in sexual orientation cases and would like to see some references. Was the case you reference based on Title IX?

As for EP, sexual orientation is not a required component to charge them in a public interest EP violation.


Either is really fine with me. If Title IX can be used in this fashion, i say more power to them. establishing solid case law is a step in the right direction.

None of this actually makes your point against Obama. The default of a properly functioning DOJ free from manipulation by a conservative for political purposes would be to act on this kind of case. Because Bush's DOJ did not act means Obama is guilty of nothing but non-interference in an autonomous DOJ.

[dsc]

25. I was wrong on the dates but here is what I was talking about

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19536167/

Also, a ruling by the Supreme Court in 1998 involving a Louisiana man who claimed he was sexually harassed by his male manager while working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, made it clear that men are protected from such harassment at work under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This was a case where the victim was perceived to be gay by his boss and teased accordingly.

As to your other point, that just isn't the case. I would love for the notion that gays are covered by the 14th amendment and/or sexual harassment laws to be so non contraversial that only the most rabidly conservative lawyer would refuse to take these cases but that is just absurd. Even I have to say that applying title IX or VII to these cases is a stretch and it also wouldn't help butch gays since they would be conforming to gender sterotypes. But if the 14th amendment were thought to apply to gays on its face then prop 8 would have been overturned long before it was on the ballot as several states passed equivalent measures years before. Instead we are only now seeing a federal challenge to these amendments and it is an open question as to whether it will succeed or not.

[Lord Helmet]

12. +1

[jenmito]

15. GREAT news! K&R!

[Cha]

16. I hope the best for Jacob to get

resolution on this..this is the first I've heard of it and Mohawk is a town about 15 minutes away from where I live in New York. I don't get the newspapers though.

Bless his heart..look how much hate he had to endure..it sounds like the school was negligent in looking out for him and they should be held accountable.

[Divine Discontent]

26. good news to hear. No time to let up. But good to hear the fight is being taken.