In six weeks, Seth Stambaugh has gone from an interning student teacher to an outcasted icon for the gay rights movement and back again.
Stambaugh, a normal Portland graduate student seeking teaching credentials, spent his first week as an intern at Sexton Mountain Elementary School.
In September, Stambaugh, an education student doing his graduate work for Lewis & Clark College, was assigned to an internship at Sexton Mountain Elementary in Beaverton. When a student inquired about whether or not Stambaugh was married two weeks later, Stambaugh told the student that he was not married because it would be illegal. The student questioned further why it would be illegal, Stambaugh told the student if he were to choose to marry, it would be to a man. Stambaugh considered the exchange a non-incident, but shortly thereafter Stambaugh was dismissed from the school and the Beaverton School District.
In a speech Stambaugh gave after the dismissal to Lewis & Clark colleagues, Stambaugh said his dismissal was the result of a parent complaint who had made a previous complaint about his clothing and appearance. He assured the audience these complaints were suspiciously unfounded.
“I was your average Mr. Rogers of the 21st century,” Stambaugh said.
Six weeks of confusion unfolded, as Stambaugh decided to file a discrimination suit against Beaverton School District and the Stambaugh’s story spread across the national media outlet.
Eventually Stambaugh wound up sharing his story on Oregon Public Broadcast’s radio show “Think Out Loud” and was featured in a front page story on “Change.org.”
Meanwhile, friends and colleagues of Stambaugh’s began a local campaign to have Beaverton School District reinstitute Stambaugh and correct what they viewed as a discriminatory injustice against the student teacher.
Despite the story’s apparent resonance, Stambaugh’s attorney, Lake Perriguey, said it became apparent soon in the process that Stambaugh and local advocates would have to fight the discrimination case without the help of large gay rights organizations in Portland.
“No one wanted to touch this case,” Perriguey said. “(Portland gay rights organizations) basically said he was no Rosa Parks, and he needed to think about his career, and maybe it would be better for this movement if it were a teacher who had been teaching a long time.”
Oregon can be considered at the forefront of anti-discrimination law pertaining to sexual orientation, as it is one of 27 states that provides protection to employees based on sexual orientation and one of 11 states that has laws protecting public- and private-sector employees based on sexual orientation, but Stambaugh’s case reveals the many ambiguities in these laws that have been designed to rid states of institutionalized homophobic discrimination.
Legally, Stambaugh’s case for discrimination was far from a sure thing. The Oregon Equality Act, passed in 2007 as an anti-discrimination protecting sexual minorities, was the law Stambaugh said he thought had been violated in the case of his dismissal. But the language of the OEA doesn’t extend concrete protections to student teachers, interns or volunteers.
Bob Estabrook, spokesperson for the Bureau of Labor and Industries, said the Oregon Equality Act needs improvement in this area.
“I think it’s probably fair to say it’s a gray area in the law,” Estabrook said. “The sense that we got is (Stambaugh) was an unpaid intern and not an employee … it’s sort of an oversight in our existing civil rights laws.”
Most of the controversy surrounding Stambaugh’s case centered on whether or not Stambaugh’s dismissal was a case of discrimination, but Perriguey sees another question in the subtext of the case: To what degree should gay and lesbian teachers feel compelled to stay in the closet for fear of professional repercussions?
Perriguey asserted that Stambaugh’s dismissal was indicative of institutionalized favoritism of heteronormative values over people of minority sexual orientations.
Perriguey’s complaint and the case itself come in the wake of recent gay teen suicides across the country, which have invigorated political discourse about the potentially fatal aftermath of homophobic bullying and institutionalized alienation of young sexual minorities.  
The uncertain terms on which Perriguey and Stambaugh would have to build a case turned out to be a non-issue. Beaverton School District reinstated Stambaugh in the same classroom on Oct. 21. Sexton Mountain Elementary School Principal Don Martin declined to comment on the reasons for Stambaugh’s return to the school.
Melinda Grier, a University law professor who teaches discrimination employment law, said Stambaugh could have made a case based in a lesser known provision within the OEA that she called the “Discriminaion in Education Prohibited” provision.
“While he wouldn’t fit under that part of the (OEA), there is probably a very good argument that he’d be protected under this provision in the Oregon Equality Act,” she said.
The section Grier refers to is not the part of the law that deals with employment , but the piece that deals with discrimination in educational institutions.
Grier explained that this provision would usually be applied to a student facing discrimination in school, but could be applicable to protect Stambaugh in this case.
“Discrimination in Education Prohibited” states that “a person may not be subjected to discrimination … based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, age or disability … in any public … school.”
The fact that Stambaugh’s case could have been a watershed case in testing the OEA could soon be mute, as members of the Bureau of Labor and Industries and the Oregon Council on Civil Rights are in the process of drafting an improvement package for the OEA that, if passed, would extend protections to interns like Stambaugh.
“These kinds of cases can be difficult because you’re talking about someone who wants to get started in an industry and might not want to shake the boat,” Estabrook said of interns. “This makes them a particularly vulnerable group. We realize that and are working on a bill for the next session to make sure that if someone is a TA or a volunteer, in the workplace, they have the same protection from discrimination or harassment as full-time employees.”
Perriguey credited Stambaugh’s reinstatement to Stambaugh’s friends and local advocates such as concerned parents writing into the school to express support for the student teacher.
“This case was won through a grassroots campaign of people articulating a vision of equality that includes gay, lesbian and queer people,” he said.
Part of that campaign were Stambaugh’s fellow graduate students at Lewis & Clark who sent out mass e-mails immediately following Stambaugh’s speech decrying his dismissal and encouraging people to let Beaverton School District know what they thought of the incident.
Heather Nabb, Stambaugh’s friend and a fellow graduate student performing her teaching internship, composed one such e-mail to rally support for Stambaugh. “I urge you to take 15 minutes, even five minutes, out of your Facebook routine or out of the kindness of your heart to support Seth and write an e-mail in the name of social justice about your thoughts and feelings regarding this incident,” Nabb wrote. “Let’s combat our natural urge to be apathetic on this one.”
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