Texas School Districts Are Allowed to Out Gay Kids to Their Parents, Court Rules

[TexasTowelie]

The Texas Civil Rights Project hoped that Skye Wyatt's case would set a precedent. Wyatt, the activists claimed, was confronted by her two Kilgore High School softball coaches in the locker room after a team meeting, where they accused her of having a lesbian relationship with another girl. The coaches soon made good on their promise to tell Wyatt's mother that she was gay.

And how did her family respond?

By filing a federal lawsuit, alleging that her constitutional right to privacy had been violated.

"We want to change the way they do business in Kilgore," one of their attorneys told the Houston Press at the time. "They have to learn to respect the rights of students."

-snip-

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was much less sympathetic to their case. On Friday, in a split decision, a three-judge panel rejected the magistrate judge's decision.

We hold that there is no clearly established law holding that a student in a public secondary school has a privacy right under the Fourteenth Amendment that precludes school officials from discussing with a parent the student's private matters, including matters relating to sexual activity of the student. We further hold that such students have no clearly established Fourth Amendment right that bars a student-coach confrontation in a closed and locked room.

More at http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/coaches_are_totally_allowed_to.php .

Cross-posted to Texas Group.

[libodem]

1. That sux

Kids are people too and deserve privacy protection,