In what experts say could be a landmark decision, a Michigan school district has been ordered to pay $800,000 this week to a student who claimed the school did not do enough to protect him from years of bullying, some sexually tinged.

This week's jury verdict against Hudson Area Schools puts districts on notice that it's not enough to stop a student from bullying another. There needs to be a concerted effort to stop systemic bullying, too.

Essentially, the federal court ruling says schools can be held responsible for what students do, if there is a pattern of harassment or if they don't do enough to provide a safe environment.

"This is going to have implications across the nation," said Glenn Stutzky, a Michigan State University instructor and an expert on bullying.

The district's attorney, however, says the verdict puts schools in the tricky position of being held liable for student behavior.

The district plans to appeal.

"You're never going to completely stop kids from being mean to kids," said Timothy Mullins of Giamarco, Mullins and Horton of Troy.

It started with name-calling in middle school and escalated as Dane Patterson entered high school. Some of the harassment was bullying, such as being shoved into lockers.

Other harassment was decidedly sexual in nature. He was called sexual insults, his locker and notebook were defaced with similar names, and worse. He and his parents say they reported the abuse, and yet it continued. Finally, in 10th grade, he was taunted in a locker room by a naked student rubbing against him.

That was the last straw for the Patterson family. In 2005, they sued Hudson Area Schools under Title IX, the Equal Opportunity in Education Act, using the sexually tinged bullying as the basis for a sexual harassment lawsuit.

This week a jury in U.S. District Court told the school district to pay $800,000 in damages to Patterson, now 19. Anti-bullying proponents say the case will send a message to all school districts that they are responsible for sexual harassment and, by extension, bullying.

For the Pattersons, however, the verdict is much simpler. It's vindication.

"I can't even put into words the pain and suffering that I went through for years," Dane Patterson said. "It's something that I would not want anyone else to go through."

While Patterson said he feels vindicated and is trying to move forward, his mother can't help but look back on their ordeal.

"I don't know how you get back eight years," Dena Patterson said. She said her son is so emotionally damaged by his experiences, he can't even go away to college and live in a dorm with other students. "We said it was worth standing up. We don't want another student, another parent to endure what we have seen."

Hudson schools, like most school districts, has an anti-bullying policy, and it took action against individual students when the bully could be identified. What the district failed to do is stop the pattern of abuse, said Terry Heiss, attorney for Patterson. For example, the school could have done more anti-bullying education, instituted more monitors or other measures to stop the pattern.

But this case makes it clear that having a policy, or even punishing individual bullies is not enough to stop a school from being liable, said Stutzky.

School officials will now have to show they were not indifferent, and that they made sure there wasn't a broader pattern of harassment beyond the individual case that went unchecked.

"If you only deal with things on an isolated case, that doesn't meet the standard for an effective response," Stutzky said.

But Mullins said the verdict leaves schools in a difficult situation.

"It sounds simple, but when you've got 500 kids and you're supposed to predict what any two or three or one are going to do in advance, well good luck," Mullins said. "If somebody writes dirty names on a boy's locker and you can't identify who it is, you can't punish the whole school."

The Patterson case initially was dismissed by the lower court in Detroit. But in October, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed that decision, saying the family had demonstrated that there was enough of a question of whether the district's response was adequate to go forward with the trial.

Patterson was called pig or sexual insults and pushed into lockers, among other types of harassment, "on a daily basis" in sixth grade. When they complained, the family was sometimes told, "Kids will be kids; it's middle school," according to the court papers.

The harassment escalated in seventh grade, according to the lawsuit. Dane Patterson wanted to quit school, and his grades slipped.

Eighth grade was better. He began going to a resource room, a kind of study hall, to be counseled, and the lawsuit says the resource room teacher was helping him cope with the problems.

But ninth grade meant a change to high school. The Pattersons wanted their child to continue working with the resource room teacher, who had been successful the previous year. But the school district said no. The bullying continued in 10th grade, culminating in the locker room incident.

"It's a terrible thing, and I'm hoping with this verdict that schools will have to enforce stricter sexual harrassment and bullying policies," Patterson said.
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