Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Nguon v. Wolf

A storm has been brewing at Santiago High School in Garden Grove, CA. Charlene Nguon (right), an openly gay student, has sued her school for discrimination. She is of Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese descent. According to her complaint, she was suspended for being affectionate with her girlfriend, a fellow student, and the principal outed her to her parents, among other things. Charlene is being represented by the ACLU and her case has been covered on MTV and CNN.

7 comments:

junebee said...

So, does the school have a PDA policy?
Did she violate it? If so it doesn't matter if she's gay or straight, she violated the PDA rules.

I can't imagine how she could keep being gay a secret from her parents but be open at school. I would think it would get back to her parents somehow without the help of the school.

Octopus Grigori said...

I like her shoes.

chanchow said...

Junebee: As far as the complaint goes, neither the school nor the district has any written policy on PDA. I think it would be pretty easy to be openly gay at school, but hide it from your family. Happens all the time. The public high schools in Orange County are generally really big (2,000+ students) and parents are rarely in contact with school administrators, so it's easy to date and hold hands in the parking lot without parents finding out.

Octopus: I like how the shoes have a pink tint.

Octopus Grigori said...

chanchow: I think that pink tint is the color pink.

Anonymous said...

those shoes do totally rock - my wife has some vans with a pink tint like that but they have skulls on them instead of the checked pattern

chanchow said...

So they come pink? Back in the 80s, I remember kids would dye their vans in the washing machine. Throw them in with a brand new red t-shirt and hope that it bleeds. I guess times have changed and now you can buy them pre-dyed.

Unknown said...

LOL. Well. If you'd like to know, my parents NEVER go to school unless I ask them to pick me up. Oh and there was no school PDA policy whatsoever until I filed a complaint form. AND my shoes were pink because I washed them and the color faded. Used to be hot pink. P.s. Glad you like my shoes haha. :]