Friday, October 22, 1999
Teens barred from honor club will get $999
School vows to uphold law
BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Somer Chipman Hurston and Chasity Glass, the two Grant County High School graduates who waged a court battle to prove they were excluded from the National Honor Society because of their pregnancies, will receive $999 each in damages.
In addition, Grant County Schools promised it will not violate Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which deals with discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. There also is a five-year agreement requiring the school district to report to the ACLU when students are excluded from NHS and sexual activity is part of the consideration. That information will in clude reporting the gender of the excluded student.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been representing the two women, released the details of the final settlement Thursday.
Getting the school district to state that it will not violate Title IX was the most important agreement, said Sara L. Mandelbaum of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in New York.
It requires that the district answer for going against the law if anything happens in the future, she said.
Grant County Superintendent James Simpson stressed that the settlement acknowledges no blame or wrongdoing. Settlement was necessary to curb the costs of continuing the court battle, he said.
“In a democratic society, the students certainly had a right to exercise the right to challenge the school,” he said. But, “we continue to disagree with the students” and U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman.
In December, the judge ordered the school district to grant full membership to Mrs. Hurston and Ms. Glass while their case continued in federal court.
When making the ruling, he said it was likely the two women could prove discrimination.
Of 33 applicants in spring 1998, Mrs. Hurston and Ms. Glass were the only two to be denied membership inNHS, which judges applicants on scholarship, service, leadership and character.
Both had grade point averages well above the 3.5 minimum and were involved in extracurricular activities. However, Mrs. Hurston, then unwed, was several months pregnant. Ms. Glass already had given birth.
Backed by the ACLU, they filed a lawsuit alleging they were discriminated against because they became pregnant.
School board attorneys have said their rejection was based on nonmarital sexual relations and, if they knew boys had engaged in premarital sex, they would have excluded them, too.
Mrs. Hurston and Ms. Glass are now college freshman. They could not be reached for comment.
Both parties still are negotiating how much the ACLU will receive from Grant County Schools. Judge Bertelsman, who must approve the settlement, will have the final say.
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