Gay teens who are harassed by classmates have legal options because of Jamie Nabozny, who won a $900,000 settlement in 1996 from a school district in Ashland, WI. That case marked the first time jurors held administrators liable forfailing to address anti-gay abuse.

Nabozny, assisted by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, sued the district where he'd endured years of taunts and threats that ultimately led to violence. Jurors agreed district officals had a responsibility to protect him and had failed to do so. They found the officials violated Nabozny's constitutional guarantee of equal protection. Nabozny was routinely spat upon and beaten up at school. Students subjected him to mock rape and kicked him in the belly so many times he needed abdominal surgery.

School officials treated him as if he were the problem, Nabozny said in testimony submitted to Congress in December 1995. They moved him into separate classes, enrolled him in a special-education class and made him sit with elementary school students on the bus so older students couldn't get at him.

"Instead of teaching the value of respect for others, the school taught me that if you are different you are the problem, and you are the one that has to be separated out and hidden," he said.

"The Nabozny case sent a ringing message to school districts throughout the country that henceforth, harassment of lesbian and gay teens in schools would be taken seriously," said David Buckel of New York, who helped pursue the case of the gay-rights group Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Nabozny's case was heard in federal court in Eau Claire and was presided over by Judge John Shabazz. A federal jury in November 1996 found three administrators of the Ashland, Wisconsin School District guilty of discriminating against Nabozny because he is gay. The ruling, the first of its kind in a federal court, is being hailed as "a victory for gay and lesbian youth all across America".

Nabozny had sued the administrators and the Ashland School District for failing to protect him from persistent verbal and physical harassment fellow students directed against him because he is gay. Nabozny was kicked, beaten, spit at and urinated on. In one incident, male students knocked him to the floor and simulated raping him.

The day after the verdict was announced, as the jury was about to consider monetary damages, the school district and its insurer agreed to a settlement in which Nabozny would receive $900,000 in damages. Another $62,000 was to go toward the physical and mental health care he required because of violence leveled against him at Ashland Middle School and Ashland High School.

"Countless gay kids have paid a high price for abuse," Patricia Logue of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund told the press. "Now the tables have turned, and it is prejudice that is costly." Lambda called the verdict "a victory for gay and lesbian youth all across America."

After the verdict and damages were announced, Nabozny told In Step Newsmagazine "I hope this decision will make administrators think twice about injecting their biases and bigotry into their jobs. I also hope that gay and lesbian kids will finally be able to feel safe in their schools."

Nabozny was recognized with numerous awards, including the 1996 "Pathfinder" award of the Gay Lesbian and Straight Teacher's Network, co-Grand Marshall of the 1996 Milwaukee Pride Parade, and others. He was invited to speak at countless local and national events.

Nabozny was interviewed by Michail Takach of the History Project in December 2024. An excerpt will be added when available.