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Loading ...Gay slurs and death by “Bully-cide”
04.09.2009 3:54pm EDT
There’s news of another suicide linked to anti-gay bullying – this time it’s an 11-year-old boy in Massachusetts.
It comes just days after the parents of 17-year-old Eric Mohat spoke out about the lawsuit they’ve filed against their son’s school, after they say bullies pushed him to commit suicide.“He was called fag,” Eric’s mother Jan Mohat said, “he was called gay.”
“His nickname was Twiggy and they just made him a target,” Eric’s father Bill Mohat said.
(The Republican newspaper in Springfield, MA, tells a similarly horrifying story of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, a sixth grader whose mother says also endured gay slurs and taunts since coming to his new school in September.)
Jan Mohat says the taunts escalated until a fateful day in her son’s math class in 2007.
“Eric was told by the bully,” Mrs. Mohat said, ” ‘Eric, why don’t you go home and shoot yourself. It’s not like anybody would care.’ ”
Tragically, Eric followed that advice, shooting himself while in his bedroom at home.
His parents have now sued the Mentor, Ohio, school district, asking why the school did nothing to stop the bullying that they say happened in front of teachers.
In a statement to CBS News, the school district says that after conducting its own investigation, they “found no evidence to support the family’s claims that we ignored a bullying problem.”
But for the Mohat family, that’s not enough.
“How do you live with yourself,” Jan Mohat said, “knowing you did not protect your child?”
While Eric’s parents do not think he identified himself as gay, a recent survey shows nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.
Nearly half reported being physically harassed and about a quarter reported being physically assaulted, according to the 2007 National School Climate Survey.
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network recommends four steps to protect students from bullies.
1. Adopt a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that includes protections based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender expression/identity.
2. Provide staff trainings to enable school staff to identify and address anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment.
3. Support student efforts to address anti-LGBT bullying and harassment on campus, such as the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance.
4. Teach age-appropriate, inclusive curricula to help students understand and respect differences at school and in their community.
Ken Myers, the Mohat family attorney, told CBS News’ Maggie Rodriguez that the current anti-bullying program in place at Mentor High School doesn’t work, as evidenced by two other student suicides the same year as Eric Mohat’s death.
“Certainly, if one child commits suicide, maybe there’s not a problem,” Myers said. “But two, three, four, five — in fact, we just learned the other day of a young lady who had committed suicide and her parents went to the school and invoked Eric’s name at the school, said ‘We don’t want another Eric Mohat.’”
Jan Mohat said that her son was a “very gentle soul,” and that she is doing this for him.
“I am doing this for Eric so that nobody forgets,” she said. “And also so that nobody should have to live through this. No other child should have to go through what Eric did. No parent should have to live through this.”
“His parents have now sued the Mentor, Ohio, school district, asking why the school did nothing to stop the bullying that they say happened in front of teachers.”
Is suing the school going to get their child back? No. The only thing it will do is force the school to dish over taxpayer money that could be used to help create an “Anti-Bullying” program. I understand that bullying is a problem, but school systems cannot become a Big Brother entity. They are a educational institutions, not holding pens for children.
We DO need to help stop this type of harassment in schools, but schools cannot be held *fully responsible* for the actions of its students.
Schools, can, and should be, held responsible for protecting a student from harassment by other students while he actually at school. Interesting how quick people are to pontificate about the actions of grieving parents. I’d like to see their response if their own child commited suicide as a result of constant psycological and emotional abuse that COULD have been dealt with far more adequately. Trivializing it down to a mere “lawsuit” misses the point entirely.
Rest In Peace beautiful children. No one can hurt you now. May all of us think about and care about the thousands of children enduring this hatred right now.
so what if hes gay that does not change him as a person. i am sorry for the lost of eric but ppeople in this world need a reality check. someone esle being gay is not ur problems and bulling them around is not going to change who they are.Suing a school is not going to bring eric back and protesting wont either but it will give others a reality check on how to control their children and how to mind their own business.Schools cant do much but others can prevent smart comments towards gays or bisexuals that can cqause them to think they are not accepted for who they are or just being gay period.
We do need to do something for these kids. Phrases like “That’s so gay” or “you’re gay” need to stop. That is not appropriate. Since when is being gay the equivalent of such words as stupid or idiotic?
Perhaps some sort of education needs to be set in by the parents, first of all, that these phrases aren’t okay, and move on from there. But entire schools cannot be held responsible for all of the actions of the students.
Why is there nothing done about the major cause of the bullying? I’m talking about the religious groups that call themselves christian but are not at all like Christ. Capitalization as given is appropriate.
This may sound a bit cruel, but Eric’s parents bear some of the blame themselves. You DON’T stand by and allow your child to be bullied. The first time this happened, they should have been in the superintendent’s office telling him if it happened again they would file suit.
When you file suit, you name not ONLY the school district, but each and every teacher, principal, AND parent (of the bullying children) involved.
NEVER allow it to get this far out of hand. When your child is attacked in this manner, you do NOT play softball.
Fed Up: I understand where you’re coming from, but sometimes even if your parents go screaming to the school–as my parents did on a regular basis when I was bullied–the district does nothing about it. Back in the 90s, we didn’t know who to contact to get them to do anything. It eventually ended only when we moved and got the hell out of there, which isn’t an option for some people
And some parents don’t know that anything was happening until they learn it from the suicide note.
«Fed Up: I understand where you’re coming from, but sometimes even if your parents go screaming to the school–as my parents did on a regular basis when I was bullied–the district does nothing about it.»
It is not because a district resists that we should give up asking for justice. The problem is not with us, it’s with them.
Some schools *are* doing their homework. They are setting the examples for others. There is no excuse for complacency.
Perhaps I’m being biased as a school teacher, but I still believe that schools cannot be held completely responsible for student-on-student harassment. On a general level, yes, schools should have programs in place to help minimize bullying problems. And teachers need to recognize what happens in their classrooms.
Unfortunately, the school cannot monitor what students say in the hallways, on the playground, on the buses, etc. And that’s where most of this bullying happens.
Now, if the parents or student went to a teacher, guidance counselor, or administrator, and no one acted on these incidents, then the school is to blame. But since that doesn’t seem to be the case from the information in the article, then I would say the parents should sue the parents of the bully if they want to deal with their grief through the court system.
Oh, yeah… where the hell did this 11-yr. old kid get a gun from anyway???
Antigay bullying is a known cause of suicide. The teachers who witnessed this harassment should have acted while they could, and the district should have had effective training in place for the teachers and other staff members. The district says that they did not ignore a bullying problem. Even if that’s true, they clearly did not address the problem effectively.
This doesn’t seem to be the case of a district that tried to curb harassment but was stymied by teachers who just wouldn’t cooperate. I’ve read elsewhere that Eric went to the administrators but they did nothing. Apparently Eric’s teacher also did nothing, though much of the harassment occurred in front of him.
Incidentally, the last I knew, Eric’s parents were not suing for money. They’re suing to get the district to effectively address its bullying problem.
@ Chad–the last thing that happened at school before Eric Mohat went home and killed himself was the exchange in math class. Don’t tell me that the parents couldn’t win a wrongful-death suit in civil court, because far flimsier cases have prevailed.
The teacher claims not to have heard the comments, but obviously somebody besides Eric and the bullies heard it–otherwise the accusation wouldn’t be here now. That teacher could’ve allowed it to go unaddressed up to the point of the comment about Eric going to shoot himself; from there on, if it can be established in CIVIL court that he had any prior knowledge of the bullying, then he bears some responsibility for what happened. So does the school administration.
If it’s true that the math teacher ignored all this stuff going on in his own classroom, there’s a strong argument that the parents can make to have his teaching license revoked, at least for several years. No way in hell does he belong in a classroom. It’s no different than hearing kids actively plan to shoot up somebody’s house. He was the adult, he had a responsibility to intervene, and he chose not to.
No, I’m not suggesting that lawsuits bring back the dead, or that they “fix” things. I look at what happened at Mentor High and I have some real questions. Understand that the vast majority of these kids have access to counseling. My high school had a broader demographic spread (because of busing), but in a student body of 1200-1300, there wasn’t one suicide in four years. Mentor, with over 3000 students, has three in a year? Heights High, a comparable-size high school in Cleveland Heights, had no such pattern–and Heights doesn’t have the same money available for in-school counseling that Mentor does. So something seems to be wrong at Mentor, and that something is adult indifference.
Why does it matter so much to me? I live here. I know somebody who teaches at Mentor and doesn’t show this kind of indifference. These are schools my friends went to; some have younger siblings or kids in them.
The parents aren’t looking to have the Mentor schools pay off their mortgage. They don’t want it to happen to anybody else. No more kids killing themselves when adults saw something going on. That’s not demanding a “nanny-state” solution–that’s demanding that the school demonstrate some adult responsibility.
Some people don’t realize how destructive and hurtful are those kind of words on defenseless people like this poor guy. I hope the parents will get over this tragedy, and the shame on the school for not taking measures to control such kind of abuse.
I think what the parents did was right. I mean, ultimately, it IS the school’s fault.
Schools should have anti-bullying programs or speeches or support groups. We are not taught to handle emotional/verbal torment from our peers when we are young.
I was once teased and bullied in middle school (thankfully, it was on and off…), so I could understand how that student was unable to say anything to his parents or counselors. Being bullied shuts your system down and you just freeze up. You can’t tell your parents because you don’t want them to worry or are too afraid to tell them.
I was lucky to confront my bullies when I had enough abuse (I thank my mother’s stubborness and father’s short-temperedness) so I was able to get through that phase. Unfortunately, this student did not do this and took his life instead…
School districts definitely need to change. They need to start addressing bullying issues and not sweep it under the desk like some dustmites.