Gay Teens Are Using the System
Students fight personal cases of discrimination through the courts and political activism.
By Seema Mehta, Times Staff Writer
March 12, 2006

Gay high school students across California are increasingly using the courts and political activism to fight individual cases of discrimination and to promote tolerance.The moves, educators and legal observers say, come at a time of exponential growth in the number of gay student clubs and an acceptance of homosexuality on high school campuses that would have been unheard of a decade ago.

"It's a reflection of the students' desire to not just not be beat up, but to actually have full equality," said Carolyn Laub, executive director of the Gay Straight Alliance Network in San Francisco. "They want to be treated just the same" as their straight classmates.

Recent examples abound: A lesbian teen sued Garden Grove educators to defend her right to kiss her girlfriend on campus. Bakersfield students sued their district after a principal barred the school newspaper from printing articles about homosexuality that identified gay students by name — even with their parents' permission. Los Angeles Unified settled a harassment suit brought by students by pledging to provide antibias training to students and staff at Washington Prep High School. Story