Culture

Family Sues School After Bullied Black, Gay Teen Takes His Own Life


 

When Nigel Shelby, a Black, gay teen in Huntsville, Alabama, took his own life at the age of 15, his family was in shock. So was the LGBTQ+ community, which responded to Shelby’s 2019 death with a collective outpouring of grief and a call to protect queer youth from harm.

Two years after his tragic death, his family is taking the teenager’s former school district to court. A new lawsuit filed on Monday alleges that the City of Huntsville Board of Education violated Shelby’s civil rights by not providing him greater support prior to his passing, according to a statement cited by the local news site AL.com. The suit also includes a claim of wrongful death.

“I feel like from the bottom of my heart, if someone had said something, this could have been prevented,” said Shelby’s mother, Camika Shelby, in a press conference held two months after her son’s death. “He was failed by a system that was supposed to protect him.”

The family is being represented by attorney Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer whose firm has previously taken on cases surrounding the deaths of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown at the hands of police.

According to a statement released by Crump’s firm on Twitter, the freshman student complained to administrators at Huntsville High School about the bullying and harassment he was facing from classmates. Those administrators — who are not mentioned by name — told Shelby that his sexuality was a “choice” and failed to alert the family to his struggles with harassment.

“Following his death, school administrators alerted Nigel’s mother to look for a suicide note in his backpack, revealing they were aware of his plans to take his own life,” the statement alleges.

While the family’s attorneys say that example is emblematic of the negligence that led to his death, it wasn’t just Shelby’s school who targeted him. After the teenager’s death, an Alabama deputy was put on leave due to derogatory comments on a Facebook post honoring Shelby’s life. In the thread, he mocked the LGBTQ+ acronym and stated that he had no respect for what he believed to be a “fake” movement.

Depressed Boy in School Hallway

Research also shows the problems Shelby faced are not unique among youth of color. According to a 2019 report from the Human Rights Campaign, 40% of Black LGBTQ+ youth said they were bullied at school. While teens are generally a high-risk group for suicidal ideation, Black children are nearly twice as likely to consider ending their lives.

There have been modest signs of progress. In recent years, states like Utah and South Carolina have struck down their discriminatory “no promo homo” laws, which prevent any positive mention of the LGBTQ+ community in school. While Tennessee is currently pushing a pair of bills that would ban queer-inclusive textbooks and allow parents to opt their kids out of curricula that pertains to LGBTQ+ topics, the Alabama House advanced a bill in March requiring sex-ed courses to censure homosexuality.

Although these positive steps forward are welcome developments, Camika Shelby hopes her son isn’t solely remembered for how his life ended. In comments to ABC News shortly after his death, she described him as a “sweetheart” and an “angel.”

“He loved everybody, he would help anybody,” she said, adding: “I just wish people could’ve seen how special he was while he was still here.”

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