A gay teenager from Wisconsin is suing his school district for failing to protect him from bullying.
According to Journal Sentinel, 19-year-old Guadalupe Paredes has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Kenosha Unified School District for violating his Title IX and 14th Amendment rights to equal protection.
This is the second time that the school district has been sued for not protecting an LGBTQ student. The first time was earlier this year when the district settled by paying $800,000 to a transgender student who had faced discrimination in the district.
Now, Paredes has stepped forward to say that school district has wronged him in his right to an education.
According to Paredes, he started getting bullied as early as the third grade. The amount of said bullying was so bad that he was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in the fifth grade.
The suit says that Paredes tried to seek help from the administration at Edward Bain School of Language and Art, but was ignored by the assistant principal, Ron Sandoval. The principal then later told Paredes to leave Sandoval alone as he “did not feel comfortable with Plaintiff’s kind.”
Unfortunately, the bullying only continued. One harasser not only attacked Paredes privately by telling the victim he should kill himself while in the school’s bathroom, but the harasser also posted the same statement on Facebook.
Paredes’s mother also got involved and tried to get help from the district’s staff, but one school official told her that Guadalupe brought the bullying on himself by “acting gay and telling other students he was gay.”
Once at Reuther Central High School, Paredes stopped reporting harassment and bullying because he thought it wasn’t worth it. With his growing depression, Paredes’s grades dropped and he was later hospitalized.
Paredes then transferred to a different high school, but eventually dropped out.
Again, Paredes is suing the school district for failing to protect him and give him an equal opportunity to learn.
The court cause continues.
h/t: Journal Sentinel
