07.31.08
Judge Smoak smokes school board Calls Principals actions against gay students a “witch hunt”
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak release a 36-page opinion July 25 that compares Ponce De Leon High School Principal David Davis’ actions against gay students last year to a witch-hunt.
Smoak says Davis led a “ relentless crusade” against gay students when he barred students from wearing pro-gay slogans, symbols and stickers at the high school located in a rural town in Florida’s panhandle. The principal was called down for leading “morality assemblies” when students began to show support for one student who had been harassed for being gay.
In May Smoak ruled that Davis and the Holmes County School Board violated incoming Senior Heather Gillman’s and other students’ First Amendment rights to express their opinions. This month he ordered that the school board pay $325,000 in court fees to the ACLU, which represented Gillman.
Smoak noted that Davis did not remove magazines with sexually suggestive ads from the school library, nor did he punish a boy who made sexual advances to a girl. However he suspended 11 students who wore pro-gay symbols and supported one student who was harassed for being lesbian.
“(The principal) embarked on what can only be characterized as a “witch hunt” to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire,” Smoak wrote. “He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to insure that the letters “GP” or the words “Gay Pride” were not written on their bodies