The specially protected status of homosexuals is acknowledged in Minnesota

We read:

"Serving some 40,500 students and 248,000 residents living in 13 communities, Anoka-Hennepin School District’s 2,700 teachers tackle huge assignments every school day. Well, one student says two of his teachers took it on themselves to add a little extra duty to their daily doings.

Alex Merritt [pic above] recently won a $25,000 settlement after reporting that while enrolled at the STEP school back in 2007-2008, two teachers harassed him with remarks about his perceived sexual orientation....

In the settlement negotiated with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, District 11 agreed to pay Merritt $25,000 and the two teachers, Diane Cleveland and Walter Filson, were reprimanded. Cleveland, a social studies teacher, was briefly reassigned, and placed on two-day unpaid suspension....

Details were unavailable regarding the disciplinary action taken regarding Filson, a law enforcement teacher.

Anoka-Hennepin denies any violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act and its settlement of this case “does not constitute an admission of any liability of violating the Minnesota Human Rights Act or any other law or of any wrongdoing,” the Department of Human Rights Web site reported....

Settlement of the Merritt incident also directs District 11 to submit training materials related to student harassment, its complaint process and sexual orientation as a protected class for the department’s approval.

According to Olson, as has been the tradition for many years, all Anoka-Hennepin staff members go through harassment training when they are hired and principals revisit the anti-harassment policy with their employees and students every year.

Source

Apparently the student (pic above) is straight but effeminate in some way. We read here that "Cleveland was found to have made comments such as: "[His] fence swings both ways" and also that he had a "thing for older men". Filson allegedly said the student enjoyed wearing women's clothes." Fullest details of what was said here.

The boy does seem to have been mercilessly and quite unforgiveably taunted and harassed by his teachers. I would have thought that such cruel and unprofessional teachers should have been fired regardless of whether the harassment concerned homosexuality or not. The boy must have been extremely distressed. I just hope he eventually manages to get over it.

My son has always been a quiet, inactive, non-sporty but thinking type and he got rather harshly disparaged by his teacher in Grade 4 who didn't think he was robust enough in his attitudes and actions. I immediately raised the matter with the Head Teacher and it was appropriately dealt with. But they still lost a pupil over it. I sent him to a different school the next year and he has never looked back. He now has a degree with First Class Honours in Mathematics and is working with great enthusiasm on his Ph.D. in Mathematics. He also has a girlfriend and lots of friends. So I am rather amused at the stupid value-system of that Grade 4 teacher. One wonders where the father of the boy in the above matter was. But my son was in a private school so parents undoubtedly have more leverage there. All the more reason for school vouchers.

The most interesting thing for me about the above incident, though, is how do you get to be a protected species? Fatties are often disparaged. Should they be especially protected? And what about Christians? There seems to be open season on them. Surely they should be protected from derogatory comments too? Half of the political Left would be doing sensitivity training if that one were brought in!

But Orwell knew the Left well, being one of them, and his saying that "Some pigs are more equal than others" seems to be a permanent feature of Leftist thought. (H/T Interested Participant)


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here