Ohio Teacher Parades Long-Haired Boy as a Girl
by Kilian Melloy
Monday Feb 8, 2010

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=102094

An 11-year-old boy says that he was harassed and humiliated at school for having long hair. The boy, who lives in Milford, Ohio, in the greater Cincinnati area, says the bullying he endured included being forced to wear his hair in pigtails and being taunted with girls' names. What shocked his mother most, however, was that the chief culprits in the boy's harassment were a teacher and a teacher's aide, reported a Cincinnati.com story on Jan. 26.

The boy's mother, Amanda Anoai, has taken the case to court in a federal lawsuit that claims that the boy was paraded before his classmates with his hair styled into pigtails, while his teachers encouraged his classmates to hurl gender-based abuse at him. Anoai also alleges that the teacher, Tori Bothe, used her cell phone to photograph him. The boy was so badly traumatized, she says, that he had to be taken out of the school and sent to classes elsewhere. "They had no reason to touch my son, to embarrass him, to make him feel bad," says Anoai.