Editor’s note: This story includes mentions of suicide. Additional resources have been included in this story.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights announced Wednesday Owasso Public Schools agreed to remedy Title IX violations, following an investigation in response to the death of Nex Benedict earlier this year.
According to a press release from the Office for Civil Rights, Owasso Public Schools failed to take proper steps following Benedict’s death. As a result, the office found the district had a pattern of inconsistent responses to sexual harassment reports, infrequently responding under Title IX or not responding at all.
The office determined the district’s response to some families’ sexual harassment reports was deliberately indifferent to students’ civil rights. According to the release, Owasso Public Schools failed to respond to notices of sexual harassment including grooming, sex-based slurs, harassment and physical assault.
“Sexual harassment prohibited under the Department’s Title IX regulation as amended in 2020 includes unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity,” the release read.
According to the resolution between the Office for Civil Rights and Owasso Public Schools, the district is now required to contact the parents of students affected by sexual harassment to inform them of the process for filing a Title IX complaint, issue a public anti-harassment statement and nondiscrimination statement to the district community and provide training on Title IX to district staff, among other measures.
Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary, Indigenous student attending Owasso Public Schools, was found collapsed at home and later pronounced dead one day after a violent altercation with fellow students in the high school bathroom in February.
Benedict struggled with bullying at school for being nonbinary, their mother Sue Benedict said in an interview with The Independent. Following the fight, Sue took Benedict to Bailey Medical Center in Owasso and was discharged shortly after. Benedict was found collapsed the next afternoon and was pronounced dead at the Saint Francis Pediatric Emergency Room on Feb. 8.
Medical examiners ruled Benedict’s cause of death as suicide by consuming medication, according to the Oklahoma Voice.
Benedict’s death sparked nationwide outrage over anti-2SLGBTQ+ policies and bullying.
More than 100 people stand on the Oklahoma State Capitol steps Thursday for a rally honoring nonbinary teenager Nex Benedict, who died Feb. 8.
In a March press release, President Joe Biden wrote “no one should face the bullying Nex did." He called on the country to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting transgender and nonbinary youth.
In response to the national attention Benedict's case has received, State Superintendent Ryan Walters said there are only two genders, adding Oklahoma public schools would use only students’ pronouns and names assigned at birth.
OU students and community members gathered on the South Oval to march in memory of Benedict on March 13.
Carrying 2SLGBTQ+ flags and signs reading "Hate has no home here" and "Your silence will not protect you" in hand, the demonstrators headed north toward Legacy Park before stopping in front of the Cleveland County Courthouse.
Kateri Daffron, an OU psychology and pre-med student, helped organize the march. Daffron, a member of the Wichita, Kiowa and Comanche tribes and the American Indian Student Association, said she hopes the grief and anger spawned from Benedict’s death fuels Oklahomans to create change.
“It's not an Indigenous value to hate and oppress,” Daffron said. “This fight doesn't stop when Nex gets justice, this doesn't stop when Ryan Walters is out of office. We need to continue until we know we have a safe space for our children to love, to learn and to flourish.”
This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Ana Barboza and Ismael Lele. Natalie Armour and Mary Ann Livingood copy edited this story.
