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| Dynasty's Mom |
I’ve since enrolled Dynasty in a charter school that’s not associated with the school district. Slowly, I’ve seen his spark come back. I’ve seen his happiness come back. I’ve seen his confidence. I have seen my son for the first time in months.
If there’s one thing I want for my kids—and every other lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender young person—to know, it’s this: You’re beautiful as you are, and never let anyone make you believe otherwise.
The Indianapolis Star reports that the suit alleges bullies used homophobic slurs, spat at Young and threw rocks and glass bottles at him, but that school administrators blamed Young, who carried his mother's purses and wore her jewelry to school.Another interesting piece is the expulsion procedures. According to sources, Darnell was told to "dress and behave in a manner that conformed to Principal Yarrell's notion of appropriate masculinity" to avoid expulsion.
"Rather than take effective measures to protect him, school staff told him that he was to blame for the harassment because of his appearance and told him to change his dress and behavior to conform to stereotypical ideas of masculinity and to be less 'flamboyant,'" the suit says.
The family's attorneys claim in the suit that the district violated Young's civil rights and the U.S. Constitution because, among other things, it discriminated against him based on his sexual orientation and it tried to get him to change the way he dressed, a violation of his First Amendment right to freedom of expression.
The school district, the School Board, Superintendent Eugene White, Tech Principal Larry Yarrell and Assistant Principal Debra Barlowe are named as defendants.
District spokesman John Althardt said Friday the district's attorneys would "review the information and we will respond accordingly," but he would not comment further.
Even though the decision paves the way for Young to return to school, an attorney for the family said he's still disappointed because the district hasn't acknowledged that it had a duty to protect Young from bullies.
"The district not only failed to protect Dynasty, it appears that school officials actually put the blame on him for not toning down the way he dressed and characterizing him as flamboyant," said Chris Stoll, senior staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights who's representing the family. "The problem here is not with Dynasty; it's with a school district that failed to protect him from constant harassment."I'm happy that Darnell can come back to school. Now, school must do its basic duty can keep him safe within their halls.
Expelling Young has not made Arsenal Tech High School safer. Neither would simply turning the punishment around by suspending or expelling the students who bullied Young. Studies show that zero-tolerance policies and punitive discipline have failed to improve school climate. Instead, they allow a school's culture of intimidation and violence to go unaddressed while individual students are pushed out without learning from their behavior. Discouragingly, those suspended or expelled students tend to be the ones suffering most from their unsafe school climate in the first place. Punitive discipline actively harms and disproportionately impacts LGBT youth and low-income students of color.source
According to the Dignity in Schools Campaign, which hosts a database of research on school discipline, LGBT students are 1.4 times more likely to be expelled than their straight peers.
Simple punishment does not address the core issues: the prejudices that students and school staff hold, and their tolerance for a certain level of daily psychological and often physical violence. Just as we need context to understand and address Young's case, we need context to understand why students bully other students and how we can change that behavior. A young person who yells homophobic slurs at his peers learns nothing from a three-day suspension, and the school staff who suspend him learn nothing about that student and any personal issues that might have spurred his behavior.
The teen’s alleged attacker, Khyran R. Delay, 34, has been charged with battery.Khyran, you are a grown ass man. How dare you attack Darnell like he was equal to your fighting level. If he said something to you, then you should've been the adult and walked away. Your foolish male ego got in the way and now, you have a criminal record.
According to court documents, Delay told mall security officers that he recognized 17-year-old Darnell “Dynasty” Young from news coverage of his story and tried to talk to Young about it. He said Young got in his face and that he pushed Young.
But Young and Donald Richardson, a janitor who witnessed the incident, told police that when Young walked past Delay’s table in the food court, Delay told Young to get away from him and used homophobic slurs. They said that Delay pushed Young and then hit him in the face, according to court documents. Richardson said he radioed for mall security, and then Delay came toward him because he was mad that Richardson had called security. Security officers arrived and detained Delay.
A police officer who investigated the case said he noticed redness in Young’s left eye where Delay allegedly struck him.
Police arrested Delay, and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office has charged Delay with a misdemeanor count of battery. Delay is currently being held in the Marion County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.
Well, if he's expelled, what about the 6 kids who bullied him? What's their punishment?
"I couldn’t believe that they did it," Grimes said. "They really kicked him out."
Grimes and Young can appeal to the Indianapolis Public Schools school board and the courts if necessary, but Grimes said they're still weighing their options. Young said he plans to get his GED and go to college.
GLAAD has been working closely with Dynasty (called "Darnell" in this clip) and his family to make sure his story is told responsibly and accurately. This piece from Good Morning America does a good job of showing how school officials often blame the victims of bullying for the actions of their tormentors, and the lengths to which a family can feel forced to go if school officials won't keep kids safe.See here
