Could Title IX Help Stop Anti-Gay Bullying?

Title IX has long prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender under any education program receiving federal money. But can Title IX be interpreted to also prohibit gender stereotyping -- the type of abuse where boys are harassed for "acting like girls," and girls are bullied for "acting like boys?"

Maybe, at least if you look at the actions of President Obama's Justice Department. Their Civil Rights Division is getting involved in a case out of upstate New York, where parents of a 15-year-old boy are suing a school for not protecting their son from anti-gay bullying.

The details of the case are almost straight out of every gay student's worst nightmare of high school (UPDATE: I should have included this from the get go, but it certainly merits saying that bullying isn't just limited to gay and lesbian students. Anti-trans bullying is as severe a phenomenon inside America's schools, and the Justice Department's decision regarding Title IX will certainly affect transgender students).

The student in this case, dubbed anonymously as "Jacob" by National Public Radio, was made fun of by his peers for acting like a girl and being gay. Classmates threw food at him, and told him to get a sex change. Another student threatened Jacob by knifepoint, and told him that he'd be hung by the school's flagpole. Even teachers got involved in the homophobia, allegedly telling Jacob that he should "hate himself" until his sexual orientation changed.

Finally, the straw that moved this from anti-gay bullying to litigation came when Jacob came home from school limping. Jacob told his parents that he sprained his ankle at a party. But as his father tells NPR, "It was a really bad sprain. They put a cast on it, gave him crutches. And shortly after that, I found out that it didn't happen at the party. It happened at the school, because somebody had pushed him down the stairs."

Threatened with a knife. Pushed down the stairs. Told by teachers to hate himself. Poked fun at in the cafeteria and told to have a sex change. And the scary part? This is the exact same experience that thousands of students experience day-in and day-out at school.

Jacob's parents removed him from the school district, and have since filed a lawsuit. Last week, the Civil Rights Division asked the judge overseeing the case if they could intervene -- on behalf of Jacob. Finally, some fierce advocacy for LGBT rights, especially in regards to making America's students safe.

See, the Obama administration is arguing that Title IX includes protections on the basis of sex stereotyping -- the type of stereotyping that fuels a whole heck of a lot of anti-gay bullying. And that's a novel approach to interpreting Title IX, but one that LGBT rights organizations say should be allowed inside America's legal system.

Hayley Gorenberg of Lambda Legal told NPR, "We have clear interpretations out of many federal courts that clearly set forth that Title IX protects against sex stereotyping."

If that's true, then Jacob and his little case that could might just change the way public schools deal with the issue of homophobia and anti-gay bullying (UPDATE: And anti-trans bullying!). And that would be huge. According to The Trevor Project, one of the nation's leading LGBT groups working to keep schools safe and end suicide by LGBT youth, LGBT kids are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.

And when you read about the horror that students like Jacob go through, is that statistic all that surprising?

Kudos to the Justice Department. Obama has his hands full with the LGBT population, and for good reason. But this is the type of bold policy maneuver that progressives of all stripes should be celebrating.

Photo credit: John Steven Fernandez