Past victories to protect queer kids didn’t save this teen

The name Pat Logue may not be familiar to many of us, but her work is.

From establishing the right of same-sex parents to adopt children to challenging the merits of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, it’s not an exaggeration to say Logue’s accomplishments as a lawyer for Lambda Legal were instrumental in changing the way society treats LGBTQ+ people. She died last month.

It is because of Logue’s work that the family of Nex Benedict may get some iota of justice. Nex was the nonbinary 16-year-old in Oklahoma who died in February after a group of students beat them up in a school restroom. One of Logue’s landmark victories — Nabozny v. Podlesny in 1996 — was the first legal challenge to antigay violence in public schools.

Jamie Nabozny had been tormented for years at his Wisconsin high school for being gay. He sued his former district for refusing to do anything to stop the attacks. Officials were not only aware of the abuse but also reportedly told him that “boys will be boys” and he should expect the bullying because he was gay. After the verdict, Nabozny was awarded $1 million.

More important, school districts around the country were put on notice: Every student deserves a safe learning environment.

Instead, Nex Benedict faced an environment similar to the one Nabozny encountered 25 years earlier. An environment our courts have ruled was unacceptable. An environment that may have cost Nex their life.

Police bodycam video shows Nex on a gurney after the attack in school. The details of their death the following day are murky, and an official cause of death has yet to be made public. But the history of abuse leading up to the death is clear.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., has called for a federal investigation into Nex’s death. Vice President Kamala Harris posted on social media: “to the LGBTQI+ youth who are hurting and are afraid right now: President Joe Biden and I see you, we stand with you, and you are not alone.”

Lambda Legal has joined 350 other local, state and national organizations in an open letter calling for the removal of Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters. In the letter, Walters is accused of creating an environment in Oklahoma schools hostile to LGBTQ students, leading to the attack on Nex.

“In the weeks following Nex’s death, numerous youths have come forward to detail the rampant harassment of Oklahoma’s 2SLGBTQI+ students by peers, teachers, and administrators,” the letter reads, using an abbreviation that includes the Indigenous term “two spirit” to refer to some nonbinary individuals. “We are outraged that a climate of hate and bigotry has been not only allowed to thrive, but encouraged by the person who is responsible for education in the state.”

In addition to Walters’ antitrans rhetoric, he appointed a conservative social media influencer to the state’s library board after that person harassed educators online who were supportive of LGBTQ+ students. Walters dismissed the open letter as a “standard tactic of the radical left” adding, “they will stop at nothing to destroy the country and our state.”

And yet it was Walters who appointed an anti-LGBTQ TikTok pseudo-celebrity to his state’s library board, someone who didn’t even live in Oklahoma and whose anti-gay social media posts incited bomb threats against school libraries accused of containing books that refer to gay people. Walters should never have been entrusted with the education and safety of children, and now I hope he will be swiftly removed.

A civil suit against the district where Nex attended school, in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso, seems likely. There’s also the question of holding those who attacked Nex accountable.

In a statement to ABC News, the victim’s family said: “The Benedicts know all too well the devastating effects of bullying and school violence, and pray for meaningful change wherein bullying is taken seriously and no family has to deal with another preventable tragedy.”

That’s why Nabozny said he sued his school district in the 1990s.

That is also supposed to be a part of local and state administrators’ jobs. In the past, gross failures to protect queer children might have been tolerated. Certainly they had few repercussions. Thanks to Logue, that has changed. Queer kids are still targeted in school. However, of there’s hope for accountability.

Cary Clack has the day off.

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