Brody's Notes... California Assembly Committee Passes "Seth's Law" Bill

Tom Ammiano, (D-San Francisco)
Photo via Getty Images

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) APR 16 | California's Assembly Education Committee, in a 7-3 vote, passed a bill that would require the state's schools to update & fully implement anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies and implement programs around sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, disability and religion.

Introduced by San Francisco Democrat, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, AB9 is named in honor of Seth Walsh, the 13-year-old student at the Jacobsen Middle School in Tehachapi, Kern County, California, who last fall on September 19th, had hung himself from a tree in his backyard after years of anti-gay harassment. Walsh died after clinging on life support for nine days.
During her testimony, Seth's mother Wendy told lawmakers that tragedies like her son's death could be prevented if schools had anti-bulling policies in place. Seth faced anti-gay harassment coming out of the closet in sixth grade.

"He feared using the restroom or being in the boy's locker room before gym class," Walsh told the Assembly Education Committee Wednesday. "My pleas for help and protection for Seth fell on deaf ears at his school."

During the investigation many students acknowledged that Seth was in distress due to bullying over a long period of time because he was gay. In spite of an anti-bullying program mentioned by school, the school officials nor the school board (more on the politically inept school board later) didn't intervene to stop the bullying and mental torture of Seth Walsh. 

Walsh also told the committee:

"It's ironic that the principal of the Jacobsen Middle School Susan Ortega proudly claims that she has a B.A. in Child and Family Crisis. Apparently Seth Walsh was a crisis Ortega did not see."

Tehachapi police investigated and interviewed Jacobsen Middle School staff and students regarding the death of Seth Walsh but found that the no crime was committed and there would be no charges in his death.

According to a recent Gay-Straight Alliance Network survey that reviewed the Web sites of every school district in California, only 34 percent of schools post their student non-discrimination policy online.

GSAN spokesman Aaron Hans, the network's advocacy program manager, said the bill would address a major reason bullying goes on: Students don't know they are protected if policies aren't posted.

Assemblyman Ammiano agreed saying:

"Students should be able to identify anti-bullying policies and know exactly who to go to." 

Ammiano, in a close collaboration with Equality California, drafted 'Seth's law' modeled after a tough New Jersey measure that was signed into law last year by New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie, (R).

A spokesman for Governor Christie noted that it's an issue that disproportionately affects gay youth, and previous laws had been proven to be inadequate in dealing with bullying. New Jersey enacted the anti-bullying law in response to an epidemic of abuse that led to several high-profile suicides at the start of the school year in the fall of 2010. The new regulations require stronger anti-bullying curricula, and creates a system to monitor and report incidents.

"It is a bill that really has teeth in it," said Assembly member Julia Brownley, (D-Santa Monica): "It has depth in it, so if this bill becomes law it, would really change the culture of our schools."