An Alabama school district has reached a settlement with the family of a Black, openly gay teenager who died by suicide after experiencing unchecked anti-gay harassment and race discrimination at his high school.
The parents of Nigel Shelby, a 15-year-old student at Huntsville High School at the time of his death, filed a federal lawsuit against the Huntsville City Board of Education and school administrator Jo Stafford in 2021 for violating Shelby’s civil and constitutional rights by failing to curb the harassment he suffered at the hand of his peers.
The lawsuit claimed that Nigel was deprived of educational opportunities and ultimately committed suicide on April 18, 2019, due to deliberate indifference by the school board and school officials to the harassment to which Shelby had been subjected.
The lawsuit also cited a lack of adequate training to prevent and address such harassment, and alleged that school officials had intentionally discriminated against Shelby based on his sexual orientation, failure to conform to sex-based stereotypes, and race.
As part of the settlement, which was announced on March 30, the Huntsville City Board of of Education agrees to implement professional development and external training on best practices for school administrators, faculty, and other personnel who regularly interact with students or are involved in receiving or investigating complaints of bullying and harassment.
Under the agreement, the district agrees to hire external consultants to advise schools on how to amend their policies, procedures, or training to better respond to allegations of LGBTQ harassment and racism, to follow those recommendations, and implement a suicide prevention program for students.
The district has also agreed to adopt changes to its Title IX policy clarifying that sex-based discrimination includes conduct based on a person’s sexual orientation or failure to abide by traditional gender stereotypes; make resources and information readily available to students on how to report bullying and harassment, including harassment of LGBTQ students; and develop procedures for electronically recording and tracking incidents of bullying and harassment.
Schools within the district will conduct annual school climate surveys to help identify and assess the prevalence of harassment and bullying against their own students, and the district must provide annual reports to the Shelby family’s attorney for the next three years as evidence of their compliance.
The district has also agreed to pay $840,000 in financial compensation to the family, including damages and attorneys’ fees incurred in the course of bringing the lawsuit.
According to the family’s lawsuit, Shelby was routinely subjected to anti-gay slurs from other students and told he should kill himself, resulting in him feeling unsafe at school. The family alleged that Stafford, the lead administrator for the freshman class, knew about the harassment, as well as Shelby’s self-harming behavior and suicidal ideation, but failed to take appropriate action to address it, instead blaming Shelby for his own harassment and saying it was the price he had to pay for being gay.
Shelby’s family had also alleged that Stafford had mocked their son’s feelings of depression, telling him and another classmate to dance to “black people’s music” so he’d feel better, without informing Shelby’s family of the harassment or their son’s mental state or attempting to connect him with a counselor or therapist who could assist him. Shelby later killed himself, approximately one week after allegedly telling Stafford how upset he was by the harassment he was experiencing, according to a classmate.
“There is no amount of money in the world that could ever replace Nigel,” Camika Shelby, Nigel’s mother, said in a statement. “You can’t put a price on a child. This lawsuit was about bringing change. It was about acknowledging that there needs to be change. It was about saving someone else’s child so that they don’t have to go through the horrible tragedy that I have. I hope this settlement will help bring about that change.”
“We’re very pleased that Huntsville City Schools has agreed to make substantial changes to ensure that students like Nigel are protected during a time when LGBTQ students are under attack nationwide,” Adele Kimmel, the director of Public Justice’s Students’ Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. “We know that LGBTQ students and students of color experience discrimination at disproportionately high rates, so it’s critical that schools take proactive steps to protect these students. By amending its Title IX policies to clarify that sex-based discrimination includes conduct based on sexual orientation and nonconformity to gender stereotypes, Huntsville is taking an important step in the right direction.”
“While Camika and Patrick lost a son, the world lost a smart, handsome, funny young person with limitless potential,” added retired Madison County District Court Judge Martha Lynn Sherrod, who served as co-counsel in the case. “We will not know what or who Nigel would have become, but his legacy inspires all of us to cherish, protect and advocate for our children without regard to sexual orientation.
“Dr. Martin Luther King said: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’ Injustice or insensitivity aimed at the LGBTQ community affects all of us, and we must continue to work to eradicate prejudice in any form,” Sherrod continued. “Schools are not an exception to this rule, but must remain at the forefront to protect our children.”
The Rainbow Youth Project USA says calls to its suicide prevention hotline from LGBTQ youth in Oklahoma spiked by more than 200% following the much-publicized death of nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict.
According to the organization, the hotline typically fields an average of 325 calls per month from LGBTQ youth in Oklahoma. But after news of Benedict's death began to spread, the volume of calls from Oklahomans spiked by 238%, reaching 1,097 calls for the month.
To handle the increased volume, Rainbow Youth Project USA created a rapid response team to assist troubled youth and parents calling in, particularly from Owasso, where Benedict lived.
A gay airline employee with dual Mexican and British citizenship was jailed in Qatar on charges related to homosexuality. He is being subjected to treatment that amounts to torture, according to his relatives.
Manuel Guerrero was Acting Head of Product Development and Service Design at Qatar Airways. The 44-year-old was detained on February 4 in Qatar's capital, Doha, after falling prey to an entrapment scheme on Grindr.
"Qatar police used a false Grindr profile to contact Manuel and invite him to participate in a meeting with other people from the LGBT community in the city of Doha," Guerrero's brother, Enrique, told the British newspaper The Mirror. "Manuel was supposed to meet a person he thought he had arranged an appointment with on the night of February 4 but instead encountered police officers who were waiting to arrest him."
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!