The name Pat Logue may not be familiar to many of us, but your work is.
From establishing the right of same-sex parents to adopt children to questioning the merits of the military's “don't ask, don't tell” policy, it's no exaggeration to say that Logue's accomplishments as an attorney at Lambda Legal were instrumental in changing the way how society treats LGBTQ+ people. She died last week.
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LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and living life in America.
It is thanks to Logue's work that Nex Benedict's family is able to obtain an iota of justice. Nex was the nonbinary 16-year-old from Oklahoma who died in February, a day after a group of students beat them in a school bathroom. One of Logue's historic victories: Nabozny against Podlesny in 1996 – was the first legal challenge to anti-gay violence in public schools.
Jamie Nabozny had been tormented for years at his Wisconsin high school for being gay. That would include taking a beating in the bathroom. He sued his former district for refusing to do anything to stop the attacks. Not only were officials aware of the abuse Nabozny faced, but they also reportedly told him that “boys will be boys” and that he should expect harassment because he was gay. After the verdict, Nabozny received one million dollars.
More importantly, school districts across the country were warned: every student, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, deserves a safe learning environment.
Nex Benedict didn't understand that.
Instead, the student faced an environment very similar to what Nabozny encountered 25 years earlier. An environment that our courts have already ruled was unacceptable. An environment that may have cost Nex his life.
Police body camera video shows Nex on a stretcher after the attack at the school. Details of his death the following day are unclear and the official cause of death has not yet been made public. But the story of abuse that led to death is clear.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) already called for a federal investigation into Nex's death. Vice President Kamala Harris posted on social media: “to the LGBTQI+ young people who are hurting and afraid right now: President Joe Biden and I see you, we are with you and you are not alone.”
This week Lambda Legal joined 350 other local, state and national organizations in a open letter calling for the dismissal of Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. In the letter, Walters is accused of creating an environment in Oklahoma schools hostile to LGBTQ students, which the organizations say led to the attack on Nex.
“In the weeks since Nex's death, numerous young people have come forward to detail the rampant harassment of Oklahoma's 2SLGBTQI+ students by their peers, teachers, and administrators,” the letter says, using an abbreviation that includes the term indigenous “two spirit” to refer to some non-binary individuals. “We are outraged that not only has a climate of hate and intolerance been allowed to thrive, but that the person responsible for education in the state has encouraged it.”
In addition to Walters' anti-trans rhetoric, he appointed a conservative social media influencer to the state library board after that person harassed educators who supported LGBTQ+ students online. Walters dismissed the open letter as a “standard tactic of the radical left,” adding, “they will stop at nothing to destroy the country and our state.”
And yet, it was Walters, not the “radical left,” who appointed an anti-LGBTQ TikTok pseudo-celebrity to her state library board, someone who didn’t even live in Oklahoma and whose anti-gay posts on social networks incited bomb threats against school libraries accused of containing books that refer to homosexual people. Walters should never have been entrusted with overseeing the education and safety of children, and now that the mistake has been made and the damage done, I hope he is quickly removed and replaced by someone with an agenda to protect the environment of learning.
Whether the state replaces him or not, a civil suit against the district where Nex attended school, in the Tulsa suburb of Owasso, seems likely. There is also the issue of holding those who attacked Nex accountable.
In a declaration To ABC News, the victim's family said: “The Benedicts know all too well the devastating effects of bullying and school violence, and are praying for meaningful change where bullying is taken seriously and no family has to deal with another “avoidable tragedy.”
That's why Nabozny said he sued his school district in the 1990s: to prevent other queer kids from being attacked at school like he was.
This is also supposed to be part of the job of local and state administrators. In the past, serious failures to protect queer children might have been normal and tolerated. They certainly had few repercussions. Thanks to Logue, that part of the story has changed. Queer kids are still the school's target. However, rather than accepting the premise that “boys will be boys,” there is hope for accountability.
