$1M award for bullying victim upheld

One of the biggest awards ever issued for racial harassment in high school -- $1 million -- was upheld yesterday by a federal appeals panel that said it was fair for a jury to conclude a school district should have done more to stop three years of demeaning, threatening and violent conduct directed at a student.

The decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan left in place the award for Anthony Zeno, a former student at Stissing Mountain High School in Dutchess County. The award had been reduced from the $1.25 million a jury originally awarded the now 23-year-old haircutter during a 2010 trial. The appeals court said the award wasn't unreasonable given that payouts for harassment in similar cases have ranged from the low six figures to $1 million in one other instance.

The appeals court's opinion noted that Zeno is "dark-skinned and biracial, half-white, half-Latino." It said he "had been menaced, threatened and taunted" at a school where minorities represented less than 5 percent of the student population.

"He endured numerous serious -- and sometimes life threatening -- incidents of harassment," it said.

It said the Pine Plains Central School District, the defendant in a lawsuit brought by Zeno, knew that Zeno was called numerous racial slurs during his 3 1/2 years at the high school from 2005 to 2008 and it was fair for a jury to conclude that school officials should have known that greater action was required beyond punishing individual students each time an attack occurred or offering optional sensitivity training sessions.

The opinion written by Circuit Judge Denny Chin said the appeals court concluded that the school district's "deliberately indifferent responses effectively caused Anthony's continued harassment." Zeno's lawyer, Stephen Bergstein, praised the ruling, saying: "It's going to help a lot of kids."

Lawyers for the school district did not return a call for comment yesterday.

The harassment began in February 2005, weeks after Zeno transferred to the school from Long Island.

When Zeno's mother complained to the principal, she was told "this is a small town and you don't want to start burning your bridges," the appeals court said. She would meet the principal more than 30 times and was eventually told by the principal that he was unsure how to keep Zeno safe on a daily basis, the court said.