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World National |
Youth wins settlement in harassment caseSUMMARY: A Pennsylvania youth will receive $312,000 from a public school district as a settlement for claims that school officials did nothing to prevent anti-gay harassment he endured at school. A Pennsylvania youth will receive $312,000 from a public school district as a settlement for claims that school officials did nothing to prevent anti-gay harassment he endured at school.
The Erie Times News reported that Timothy Dahle, 19, said he was verbally and physically harassed by former classmates for five years and that school officials ignored his and his parents' requests for protection. Dahle and his parents subsequently filed suit in U.S. District Court in Erie against the Titusville Area School District. The lawsuit, filed in June 2000 and scheduled to go to court Jan. 24, was settled Tuesday. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national advocacy group for GLBT students in grades K-12, said the settlement is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania. The school district denied Dahle's allegations, according to Erie Times News, saying that he was belligerent to other students and that he did not notify school administrators of the harassment. "I hope this sends a message to all school districts in Pennsylvania," said Dahle's lawyer David Long, "and that message is if you turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the kind of harassment Timothy Dahle endured for five years, you're going to be in for an expensive lesson." A GLSEN spokeswoman told the newspaper that "five or six" similar lawsuits have been filed in the United States since 1996. |
