On March 24, 2000, a former high school student allegedly harassed on the basis of his sex and sexual orientation, brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky against the Board of Education of Somerset Independent Schools.

As detailed in the United States' Amicus Curiae brief, the plaintiff, represented by private counsel, claimed that the defendant discriminated against him based on his sex in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq., and violated his right to be free from discrimination based on his sex and sexual orientation under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant was indifferent to ongoing physical, verbal, and sexual harassment he experienced at the hands of peers from 1997 until 1999, by failing to take action to end the harassment. Instead of responding to the plaintiff's complaints, administrative officials told him to ignore the behavior and that the school system's policies didn't cover same-sex sexual harassment, treating him differently because of his sex and sexual orientation.

As the case implicated Equal Protection and Title IX concerns, on July 31, 2000, the United States sought the court's leave to participate as amicus curiae in opposition of the defendants' motion to dismiss. This permission was granted by the Court (Judge Jennifer B. Coffman) on October 10, 2000. On January 16, 2001, the Court dismissed the action due to a final settlement reached between the parties. According to a summary posted on the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division website and information provided by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, the settlement required the Board of Education to pay the plaintiff $135,000 and modify its sexual harassment policies to prohibit discrimination against students and employees on the basis of sexual orientation.

Stella Cernak - 04/06/2014


compress summary