High Court Declines Case On Harassment of Gay Teacher

By Mark Walsh

Washington

The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to take up the appeal of an openly gay former teacher who claimed he was driven from his job, and into a nervous breakdown, by harassment from students and parents that his school district failed to address.

Meanwhile, over a bitter dissent by four justices, the court refused to take up the question of whether the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-old offenders constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The teacher case involved Tommy R. Schroeder, who taught 6th grade at Templeton Middle School in the 4,000- student Hamilton, Wis., district when he disclosed his homosexuality at a public meeting in the early 1990s. Beginning in the 1993-94 school year, some students began to call him "'faggot" and suggested he had AIDS. He reported the incidents to administrators, but most of the harassment was...