Gay California teacher can sue school over harassment

A gay teacher can sue a California public school at which he says officials knew students were taunting him but did nothing to stop the abuse, a U.S. district court ruled on Monday. The Antioch Middle School, located east of San Francisco, had sought to dismiss a civil rights case brought by former teacher Ray Klimasewski, who says he complained to administrators about students insulting him and writing antigay epithets on his classroom wall. The principal and vice principal did not offer to help when Klimasewski reported the incidents, according to court filings, and vice principal Carol Lowart was unsympathetic when he said he had not encountered such hostility at a previous job in Stockton, Calif. "Perhaps you should go back to Stockton, a place where people like you belong," the filings quote Lowart as saying in response. Klimasewski was later dismissed during a medical leave. Marilyn Patel, a U.S. district judge for the northern district of California, declined the school's request to dismiss the case. (Reuters)