I’ve been chewing over a press release that came in last week from the Anoka-Hennepin School District announcing the creation of a summer mental-health help line for students. My conclusion: Sometimes a court order just might be the most helpful instrument in a beleaguered administrator’s toolkit.

Clearly anguished by last month’s suicide of a district student, the seventh in 18 months, Superintendent Dennis Carlson could wave a judicial mandate at the school board and at those who pack its meetings and demand continued LGBT “curricular neutrality,” like a giant clove of garlic.

My train of thought:

It seems that during the recently concluded school year, for the first time the district tracked the number of distressed students who reached out to an adult at school for support and found that more than 500 kids did so. With the school year ending, Carlson was worried that needy kids might have no one to turn to.

“With the school year ending, our students need to know that Anoka-Hennepin cares about them, even when they’re not in school,” he said in the release. “The message for the larger community is that when school ends, there are students who lose a supportive environment and an important piece of stability in their lives.”

Wallet cards for students
The district is hiring staff to answer a dedicated phone line and sending the number home on wallet cards for kids and in informational notes included with report cards. Staff will be on hand Monday through Friday from 8:00-4:30 to connect callers to community resources.

Anoka-Hennepin has experienced at least seven student suicides over the last year and a half. Four of those students are believed to have been bullied over their perceived sexual orientation. District officials described the survey and the help line as a response to the suicides.

And yet, bullying, harassment or feelings of isolation by gay, lesbian or transgender students are nowhere to be found among the reasons students might need support listed in the release. “When our families suffer — with money problems, unemployment, home foreclosure, extended leaves of military service, homelessness and more — our children suffer,” Carlson said. “This stress on our families causes great stress on our students.”

Nor does the release mention that in addition to the local number, 763-433-4695, the district is providing LGBT students with a special 24-hour line, 866-488-7386. No, the LGBT number was reported by the Star Tribune, which put the release in some context, albeit without noting that the district’s response has been harshly criticized.

No mention of possible lawsuit
And neither the story nor the release mentioned that the district is facing a possible lawsuit over its policies. On May 24, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights send Carlson a letter asking that the district take steps to address what it claims is the ongoing verbal and physical harassment of LGBT students in violation of Title IX and the Minnesota Human Rights Act.

The letter [PDF] describes the experiences of several students who say they were harassed over long periods of time and whose schools responded with indifference at best, or by advising them to enroll elsewhere. If Anoka-Hennepin does not change its policies, the letter states, the two organizations will sue on behalf of the students, with the help of Faegre & Benson.

“It has become increasingly apparent in the course of the investigation that the District’s so-called ‘sexual orientation curriculum policy,’ or ‘gag policy,’ contributes significantly to the hostile environment for LGBT students within the District,” the letter explained. “The gag policy serves no legitimate education-related purpose. Rather, as made abundantly clear in the District’s own guidance about the policy, the gag policy singles out a vulnerable and disfavored minority — LGBT students — and prevents teachers and other district employees from supporting, or even protecting, those students within the classroom.

“On the contrary,” the missive continued, “the his­tory surrounding the policy’s enactment clearly shows that the policy was adopted solely in deference to some community members’ disapproval of, and animus toward, a particular class of citizens — LGBT people. The law is clear that mere animus toward an unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental purpose.”

Staff unsure how to interpret policy
Although the district claims no kind of harassment will be tolerated in its schools, staff continue to complain that they are unsure what they are and are not allowed to say to students about LGBT issues, including harassment. The letter from the advocacy groups mentions incidents in which teachers and administrators supposedly turned a blind eye to bullying.

In March, Democratic Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation requiring school districts to outlaw anti-LGBT bullying and penalize districts that fail to take pre-emptive steps. It’s the second year he’s done so, and while this year’s measure enjoys more bipartisan support than last year’s, it’s still clear Franken faces an uphill struggle.

And I think we can pretty much rule out passage of a state anti-bullying law, in the works since, well, since U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann was able to rail against it in the state Senate.

(Did I mention that Bradlee Dean, the heavy metal minister whose anti-Obama statehouse prayer was wiped from the legislative record by an embarrassed GOP, is one of those concerned that Anoka-Hennepin is in danger of teaching “the gay lifestyle”? I digress.)

Body of law helped in Eden Prairie
On the other side of the metro area, a large body of law built around nearly 60 years of court orders helped Eden Prairie Superintendent Melissa Krull stand up to members of her board and community who did not want school attendance boundaries redrawn to address a series of problems, including racial segregation.

Carlson seems so clearly like a guy who really does want his staff to provide a safe haven for every one of his district’s 40,000 students but who can’t articulate an affirmative policy specifically protecting LGBT ones. He has said publicly several times that his district seems to have been singled out as Ground Zero in a cultural battle — a statement it’s hard to argue with. And he has hinted several months ago that he would welcome a U.S. Justice Department attempt to mediate.

A court order might not put an end to the debate, but it would settle the argument.