Gay Ex-Student Gets Settlement From School

Aug. 30 -- A Nevada school district has approved a $451,000 settlement to a former student who claimed school officials ignored his pleas for help when other students beat and threatened him because he was gay.

Derek Henkle, now 21, filed a federal civil rights suit against the Washoe County school district in Reno, Nev., back in 2000.

The district settled the case out of court this week, agreeing to pay Henkle the monetary settlement, and to implement school policies designed to protect gay students and formally recognize their constitutional right to be open about their sexual orientation.

In the suit, Henkle contended that since he was 14, other high school students beat him up and threatened him, while school officials failed to protect him, investigate his claims of harassment, or punish the students who were responsible.

"The largest incident," Henkle said on Good Morning America, was when I was walking back from lunch and in the middle of my school parking lot, a group of six students surrounded me and pulled up a lasso and said 'let's string down the fag and drag him down the highway.' They got the lasso around my neck three times," he said.

After he broke free and hid inside the school, a teacher called the principal's office, saying she thought both he and she were in danger and to send help to the classroom as soon as possible. It took more than an hour for administrators to send help, and Henkle said he was later sent home on a school bus, where he feared the same bullies would attack him again.

A National Problem

The lawsuit was filed by lawyers for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay rights organization, and the national law firm of O'Melveny & Myers.

In May 2001, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled "Hatred in the Hallways," which found that gay teenagers were so often subject to bullying in public schools that they were not receiving an adequate education. The problem affected as many as 2 million school-age youth nationwide, the report said.