Asian American Student Fights School for Equal Rights
A Santiago High School senior accuses school administrators of trying to make gay issues invisible.
An occasional peck on the lips and hugs made the school administration mad.
For Charlene Nguon, 17, the simple human gestures were expressions of love unfettered by rules, so she distributed them liberally to her girlfriend. But on a high school campus, a place dominated by rules, the gestures resulted in serious disciplinary actions that she says were unfairly leveled against her because of her sexual orientation.
Hugging and kissing her girlfriend led to Saturday school, suspension and a forced transfer to another high school, she claims, all because she was “out to the whole school.” So the soft-spoken teenager, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Gay-Straight Alliance, are suing the school district in an effort to stop discrimination and harassment of gay and lesbian students on campus.
“It was just hugging,” said Charlene by phone from her Garden Grove, Calif. home. Straight couples that display the same affection and more at Santiago High School (SHS) do not get disciplined, she added.
Charlene first met her girlfriend Trang in science class. They sat next to each other and their proximity bloomed into friendship. During the summer of their junior year, Charlene felt a strange pang in her heart, but she denied those feelings at first.
“I did not consider the possibility of being gay,” said Charlene, who added that Trang confessed her love first. “Then I thought maybe I’m gay too.”
Their love story played out in public just like any other teenage couple — arms slung over shoulders accompanied by fleeting kisses between classes. But then the punishments started. School officials continuously told the couple to stop expressing affection towards each other and Principal Ben Wolf disciplined the couple with Saturday school for sitting with their arms around each other while talking to a heterosexual couple, according to the lawsuit.
Convinced that they were being discriminated against, Charlene’s friends took photos of heterosexual couples kissing in plain sight of school officials without getting disciplined. But the punishments for Charlene and Trang kept pouring in.
Despite their public expression, at home Charlene — who is of Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese descent — had not yet come out to her family. It was Wolf who broke the news in a Dec. 16 phone call to Charlene’s mother, Crystal Chhun.
“I was just crying because I was scared how she was going to perceive me,” Charlene said, who like Trang received a one-week suspension for defiance and an additional punishment of a school transfer in the middle of the year. School officials wanted the couple separated and cited an unflattering blog entry Charlene wrote about a teacher, a punishment she said for her First Amendment right to free speech.
Charlene is a straight-A student ranked in the top five percent of her class with no prior record of discipline. When news of the suspension reached Charlene’s older sister Eileen Malm, her maternal mind began to race with horrible possibilities — Drugs? Sex? Vandalism?
But the softly spoken answer threw her off guard.
“It’s worse. I kissed a girl.”
“I’m very open-minded. I totally understand that [homosexuality] is not something you choose,” said Eileen, who called Wolf to hear both sides of the story. “After I hung up the phone, I did not think he was fair at all.”
As a result of Charlene’s suspension, she was disqualified from the National Honor Society and near the end of her junior year was forced to transfer to a high school over four and one-half miles from home. To cover the distance, she biked to school on stretches of road without bike lanes.
The resultant scars from the battle with the school run deep. Charlene’s grades suffered at the new school and the unfair treatment left her feeling so “hopeless and helpless” that she considered dropping out. And she’s the luckier one. Trang’s traditional family has not been as supportive.
“It’s complicated,” said Trang, who added that the strain has forced her to stay away from home.
“They treat [homosexuality] like a disease. They want to cure her,” said Charlene.
The lawsuit filed Sept. 7 seeks to clear Charlene’s otherwise flawless school record and provide a learning environment free from discrimination and harassment as required by the California non-discrimination law.
SHS has also been reluctant to allow a Gay-Straight Alliance, a network of on-campus clubs, to form. Campus computers even filter the organization’s Web site from viewing, said Charlene.
“What has happened to Charlene is one of the worst examples of discrimination that I have seen,” said Christine P. Sun, an ACLU staff attorney representing Charlene in the lawsuit. “Charlene is a straight-A student, and is praised uniformly by her teachers for being cooperative and enthusiastic about her schoolwork. But instead of holding Charlene up as an example of a model student, the school seems intent on derailing her success just because she is gay.”
This case is part of a recent nationwide trend of school officials forcing gay students to be invisible, said Sun. A group of journalism students at East Bakersfield High School in Calif. are suing their school for censoring stories about gay students from an April edition of their newspaper and a New Jersey lesbian student said her school officials did not do enough to protect her against two and one-half years of physical and verbal attacks.
“We have brought this case to stop schools from treating students unequally just because they are gay,” said Sun.
An official at the Garden Grove School District did not comment on the case, but Alan Trudell, the district’s public information officer, indicated the next step would be determined in the courtroom.
With the ACLU’s help, Charlene was able to return to SHS last month to complete her senior year. Her days are mostly normal unless you count the gossipy classmates and the teachers who give her “bad looks.” During a Sept. 15 assembly Wolf, with Charlene and Trang in the audience, explained why his actions are free from prejudice.
“He said it very generally. He mentioned us a lot. I felt very angry and very entertained at the same time,” Charlene said.
With her name splashed across newspaper headlines and a protracted legal battle ahead, the case has far exceeded the scope of innocent kisses. The couple is now refraining from expressing their love for each other on campus because they “don’t want to give the school any more ammunition.”
In preparation for the protracted legal battle ahead, Charlene’s soft-spoken words are lined with a determined edge.
“We need to teach the administration that they can’t discriminate against people. I feel like the school is doing everything to oppress gay people and make them invisible.”
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