Tristan Seehus. Rest in Peace.
Posted on 07/20/2016 10:42:26 AM PDT by mn-bush-man
A federal lawsuit filed by the parent of a Lincoln Park Middle School student alleges his son's 2015 suicide was the result of "severe and pervasive harassment" — and the Duluth school district's failure to stop it.
Todd Seehus is suing the Duluth school district, its school board and former and current administrators at the school because of their alleged disregard of complaints about students bullying Tristan Seehus, 13, who killed himself in February 2015.
Tristan was harassed verbally and physically because of his perceived sexual orientation or gender expression, according to the complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court.
Tristan was a student at the school from September 2012 until his suicide in February 2015.
During that time, the complaint alleges, Tristan was physically threatened and attacked, and subjected to anti-gay and gender-related slurs, all of which caused "severe emotional and physical distress." The response of district officials, the complaint said, "was to ignore, minimize and dismiss abusive behavior," and was a form of discrimination.
"Tristan's suicide was a foreseeable result of Defendants' failure to provide him a safe educational environment," the complaint says.
The complaint says Tristan did not identify as gay, but was perceived as gay by other students.
It alleges harassment of him that included being pushed into lockers, having books knocked out of his hands and being called "freak" and told he "looked like a girl." Such behavior was repeatedly reported to school officials, but it continued until Tristan took his own life, the lawsuit claims, also stating that the attacks directed at Tristan "occurred on school grounds and some occurred in plain view of school officials and school surveillance cameras."
The district "failed to enforce any existing policies or procedures" to protect Tristan from being bullied, the suit states, and treated Tristan differently than other "similarly situated students on the basis of actual or perceived orientation."
The lawsuit outlines four counts, and Todd Seehus is seeking damages in excess of $75,000 per defendant, per count.
He also is seeking policy changes, including:
requiring the district to begin mandatory training programs for staff and students relating to diversity and prevention of bullying toward LGBT students or those who are perceived to be adoption of policies that instruct staff on responding to student harassment complaints as a result of the student's sexual orientation or gender expression having the district conduct student assemblies meant to address homophobia and tolerance assigning a peer mediator who would address harassment and discrimination issues at school maintaining records of each harassment complaint made to staff
The school district released a statement Tuesday that reads:
"The death of a young person is especially devastating. As educators, we work with the community to provide support to students and staff and assist with the questions and grief which accompany such a loss.
While we can't comment specifically on the litigation, it's important to know that our schools endeavor to create an environment where all students are treated with respect and to validate the rights of all students to a safe and welcoming environment.
As an organization, we've included community input in creating policies and practices that align with Minnesota's Safe and Supportive Schools Act and federal harassment laws that include gender identity and inclusion. We continue to seek guidance from the Minnesota Department of Education, the Minnesota School Boards Association and the Minnesota State High School League in an ongoing effort to create safe, supportive environments for all students. Any litigation will be referred to legal counsel for review and appropriate response."
Calls to Todd Seehus' attorney were not returned Tuesday.
The district in 2014 adopted a new bullying prevention policy that better details the steps that should be taken by school officials upon receiving a complaint, and dictates more training for staff and students. All public school districts were mandated by the state to enact new policies.
As part of that, the district began reporting to the School Board the numbers of referrals regarding bullying that it receives each year, which are documented for the state. The number for the 2014-15 school year — the year Tristan died — was 78 for the district of about 8,300 students. District officials have said that's not inclusive of all complaints, as not every complaint rises to the threshold of documentation. This past school year, the number was 77.
Oops, bad link to article.
Sorry about that - not sure what I did. Thanks for providing a working link.
or....more or less an average day where I went to high school. We all lived.
I see that Dad is interested in the lawsuit. Wonder if he was on the scene when all of this was happening.
I don't condone physical violence, but firmly believe that a little bullying is good. I learned at an early age how to stand up for myself, when to open my mouth, and (most important) when it was best to keep it closed. Some lessons were more painful than others. It's called "Life", not everyone has your best interests at heart at all times. Best to learn how to deal with that reality early on.
I wonder what will happen when these snowflakes make it to the workplace. As a manager, will I need to adjudicate every dispute? "So-and-So looked wrong at me, and they're talking about me again!"
I'm not looking forward to that.
When you wonder why school’s have “safe zones”, “feelings counselors”, and zero tolerance policies...lawsuits like these are the answer.
Tristan was a special needs student and should have been riding the short bus
His suicide is proof
The kind of behaviour that gets dismissed as “just a little bullying” would get you fired from most workplaces these days. In all my working life I’ve never had to put up with the kind of idiocy that I did in my school years - mostly junior high (grades 7 to 9) - and I was only a minor victim of bullying. I don’t think I learned anything useful from it. Some kids (unlike me at that age) are very sensitive and just can’t take the constant harassment.
Still, given the way our schools are organized and the expectations we have for them - which as far as I can tell is largely to keep kids out of their parents’ hair so they can go to work or whatever - it’s difficult for schools to do much about this. Teachers and other adults in the schools can’t be everywhere at once. And, for that matter, coming to the aid of the bullied and punishing the bullies is likely to make the bullying even worse in the future. I don’t know if this boy told his parents what was going on. Likely the only good solution for this kid would have been to move him to a different school, home schooling, or a private school.
If someone was bullied because they were fat and committed suicide, would they get as much sympathy?
Nope, if I was to guess, I'd say feral urban yutes were the ones doing the harassing and the lib school administration didn't know "how to react" without hurting their "feewings".
Musn't anger the ferals or their parent, ya know. d:^)
No child should be bullied and the bullies need to be expelled.
Yet, every morning his parents packed him off to be “physically threatened and attacked, and subjected to anti-gay and gender-related slurs, all of which caused “severe emotional and physical distress.” No, it’s the parents’ fault for not taking him out of that environment. There were alternatives such as another public school, a private school, homeschooling or sending him to a relative.
Tristan Seehus. Rest in Peace.
Tristan Seehus. Rest in Peace.
If you think about it. grouping together by age hundreds of children and then giving them privacy to act as they please is a new development in our culture.
Perhaps all children should be home schooled with brothers and sisters of different ages. It would make all of them act in a more mature and considerate way, with close supervision and moral basics.
I usually cringe whenever I hear the “bullying” thing trotted out, but this boy was hounded to death, literally. Junior High kids can be mean, it’s like Lord Of The Flies left unchecked. If one weird kid starts getting picked on, others start picking on him or her, too. It’s like some strange Darwinian thing, similar to how chickens will gang up and peck an unhealthy chicken to death.
You’re absolutely right - it is basically unprecedented in history, much before the last century or so, that we would throw children together by the hundreds in a situation where they can’t possibly be effectively supervised all the time by the adults, who they outnumber by a factor of about 10 to 1. I’m not sure though, in the modern age, that expecting every family to home school their children is realistic.
One thing schools could do is take complaints of bullying seriously, and make the bullies suffer for it, not the bullied. Suspend/expel them, and make the parents of the bullying deal with the fallout of that, like finding another place for their kids to go to school. Somehow it always seems to be the bullied who have to accommodate the bullies.
We should return to Little House on the Prairie, a piece of chalk and a slate. At least then all kids could read and write.
In high school in the late 80’s I was being harassed verbally and physically daily by a black male student literally in front of my black female teacher. I asked her repeatedly to make him stop. She would not.
Now I have a hell of a temper. But I tried to handle the right way. One day I came into class and he patted me on the butt when I walked in and I lost it! I went to punching him in the head and calling him the n word every other word with a few other “sentence enhancers.” Guess who decided to get involved then?
I could not put my hands on him and I could not use racial slurs and I told her I tried to get you to make him stop and you wouldn’t so now I bet he won’t touch me again. She told me to apologize and her I told her to f off!
I got expelled for 10 days. The vacation was worth it. That boy wouldn’t even look at me again because I humiliated him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.