Oxnard, CA school's handling of gay student's behavior comes

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Oxnard school's handling of gay student's behavior comes under scrutiny

Teachers testify at Brandon McInerney's trial that administrators ignored warnings that fellow student Larry King's feminized attire and taunting behavior were causing problems. McInerney is accused of killing King in a classroom.

Brandon McInerney is the defendant in the Chatsworth courtroom, accused of bringing a gun to his middle school and killing gay classmate Larry King. But as the case unfolds, the school itself has come under scrutiny.

One teacher after another has testified in the murder trial about their deep worries that King's feminine attire and taunting behavior could provoke problems — and that E.O. Green Junior High administrators ignored them.

It wasn't just that King, 15, had begun wearing makeup and women's spiked-heeled boots, witnesses testified. It was that he seemed to relish making the boys squirm at his newly feminized appearance and was taunting them with comments like "I know you want me."

Full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0811-gay-student-20110811,0,923167.story?track=rss

Given the fact that the suspect was put in a total no-win situation by the administration, I would support a light sentence in this case. I would hope he would be given a plea deal as a juvenile and released when he is 21. Regardless of the "victim"s dress, his actions were borderline predatory and there was some mention in the article of an IEP, so maybe the "victim" should have been on the special ed department's radar and moved to a self-contained emotionally disturbed classroom. If I sound prejudiced, consider that if this was a guy harassing a girl this way, and the administration defended him and the girl shot him, there would not be any outrage. In a less hypothetical situation, no administrator would dare not confront a guy making unwanted gestures and advanced to a girl, so why would not everyone get the same protection under the rules? Even at my high school, where homosexuality was frowned upon by most students and the administration held their feelings close (even with one being strongly suspected of being a closet lesbian), the policy was no unwelcome advances from anyone towards anyone regardless of which of the 4 possible ways it can happen. And guess what? Crap got said but nobody got beat up much less shot because of their sexuality.

Sorry but I do not think someone should get a light sentence for bringing a gun to school and shooting a student with it...

Okay, so a quick timeline:

1) King starts sexually harrasing a group of boys
2) The school does nothing to stop this, even though they know King is placing himself in danger
3) One of the boys murders King

Now, lets see what happens if we, ah, "straighten out" the timeline:

1) Boy is sexually harrassing a girl
2) The school does nothing to stop this
3) Girl murders boy

The question is, would this be grounds for leniency for the girl, and if so, why should it not be for the boy in the first situation?

Let's take the analogy a step further:

1) Girl is sexually harassing a gay boy
2) The school does nothing to stop this
3) The boy murders girl

Murder is murder. The administrators of the school should be fired. The murderer should be locked away until he is hopefully rehabilitated many years from now.

We can take all the analogies a step further and strip away the gender and sexuality of the parties involved, and you have an antagonist sexually harassing a victim. The administration isn't doing anything to stop it so the victim is forced to figure out how to take care of the situation the best they can on their own. If the the sexual harassment victim/shooter had recourse to end the matter through any kind of grievance process then there wouldn't have been any mitigating circumstances, but the administration had effectively shut the shooter out of that option.