Tempest Smith

[Jeanette X]

http://www.detnews.com/2001/schools/...a01-196600.htm


"Tempest said she told her teachers about it all the time," Smith said. "I have to wonder if someone in the school couldn't have stopped it."

Much of the teasing was said to revolve around Smith's practice of Wicca, a pagan religion.
Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith, said she told her daughter's teachers and counselors about the teasing.


"We had several conversations about what my daughter was going through," Smith said.

"But nobody did anything."


http://www.rickross.com/reference/wicca/wicca30.html

According to Tempest's journal, found under her bed after the suicide, her classmates often crowded around her chanting "Jesus loves you," along with other comments that ridiculed her Wiccan beliefs. Attorneys for Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith, claim school employees violated the girl's civil rights because they knew about the teasing, but did nothing to stop it. That indifference contributed to the girl's suicide, they claim. "If it would've been a Christian kid being teased, you can bet they would've done something," said Smith's attorney, Joel Sklar. "But the Lincoln Park School District has historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."


http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=7086

Denessa said she intervened with the staff but the torment continued. In elementary school, Tempest played the flute to second graders to avoid being harassed during recess. Denessa said the teasing progressed to physical assaults and verbal abuses including calling Tempest “Satan’s whore” and “Wiccan slut.”

http://www.valdosta.edu/spec/20010405/opinion5.html

Double standard? Oh yes indeed!