Franken spoke of several recent suicides of LGBT students around the country, including Justin Aaberg who attended the Anoka-Hennepin School District.
Following years of controversy about bullying in her district, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann responded to an online petition.
The federal Department of Education and the Department of Justice have also launched investigations into the district after the suicide deaths of nine students in the past two years, several of whom were known to identify as LGBT.
Bachmann was the target of a flash mob and of pointed questions on her opposition to gay marriage by Tonight Show host Jay Leno.
Investigations of the bullying of LGBT kids is the biggest growth area in the Department of Justice’s civil rights division.
On Tuesday, the New York Times featured a front page article about the Anoka-Hennepin School District and its two-year long struggle to defend policies that limit discussion of LGBT issues in district schools. It’s an issue the Minnesota Independent has covered from the beginning.The following is a full account of the dispute.
The Anoka-Hennepin School District and lawyers for six students who sued the district over bullying began talks this week in an attempt to reach a settlement. While those talks were underway, the Parents Action League submitted a petition to the school board urging it not to budge on a policy that limits discussion of LGBT issues in the schools. And PAL came under scrutiny by other parents who questioned the group’s ties to the Minnesota Family Council.
The Anoka-Hennepin School District is defending its policies in light of lawsuits by six district students, unfavorable coverage on the editorial pages of area newspapers and a renewed national spotlight on the accusation of an unsafe environment for LGBT youth in the district’s schools. The district says its policies are not to blame for bullying in the district, but others have charged that the schools’ policy that limits LGBT discussions in schools is harmful to students.
A student filed suit against the Anoka-Hennepin School District on Monday alleging that the school district did not do enough to protect her from bullying. Filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the new suit alleges that a lesbian student was repeatedly harassed, both verbally and physically, and that the school undertook disciplinary action against the student instead of her tormentors.
Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest in the state of Minnesota, has been at the center of a tug of war between the LGBT community, which says the district is not safe for students, and religious right parents, who want all mentions of LGBT issues stricken from school curricula and programming. At issue is a policy that restricts LGBT content in the schools, a policy the school district said on Monday it would not change. In response, a pair of civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday morning. In addition, federal authorities have opened an investigation into the school district.
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