Flores v. Morgan Hill Unified School District

A group of students (plaintiffs) who were or were perceived to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual suffered repeated, serious harassment at Morgan Hill Unified School District (defendant) between 1991 and 1998, including physical assaults with anti-gay slurs, distribution of pornographic images, threatening notes, and a beating that hospitalized one plaintiff; multiple assistant principals and principals (defendants) were notified of these incidents but consistently failed to adequately investigate, discipline the offenders, or stop the ongoing harassment, and the district's anti-harassment training never specifically covered sexual-orientation-based harassment. The plaintiffs sued the district and individual administrators under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 for violating equal protection; the trial court denied summary judgment, and the defendants appealed.