After outcry, U.S. Dept. of Education will investigate Nex Benedict’s death

The Department of Education (DOE) is launching an investigation into the Owasso Public School District of Oklahoma following the death of 16-year-old nonbinary Native American student Nex Benedict. Benedict died a day after three girls attacked them in a high school girls’ bathroom.

The department agreed to investigate in response to a request by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. The investigation was announced days after 350 public figures and LGBTQ+ rights groups signed an open letter telling the Oklahoma legislature to remove the state’s rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ head of education, Ryan Walters.

Related:

Students walk out to protest school’s horrific bullying environment after Nex Benedict’s death

Current and former students paint a grim picture of Owasso High School’s disregard for the safety of its LGBTQ+ students.

On February 22, the HRC sent letters to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, asking their departments to investigate the circumstances surrounding Benedict’s death.

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The HRC’s letter noted that Oklahoma’s government “has become increasingly hostile to the LGBTQ+ community in recent years,” and that Owasso High School “unlawfully failed to address the discrimination and harassment” that Benedict reportedly experienced before their death. The HRC wrote that these circumstances and the attack on Benedict may have violated federal civil rights and hate crime laws, respectively.

“We believe that Nex’s death is the natural consequence of a growing wave of hatred against LGBTQ+ people,” both letters said. “This hatred is being fueled by an unprecedented, coordinated attempt to eliminate the rights and visibility of our communities across the country, which recently led us to declare a national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people for the first time in our nearly half-century history.”

In a March 1 letter to HRC president Kelley Robinson, the DOE wrote that it will investigate whether the school district “failed to appropriately respond to alleged harassment of students” in accordance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (a federal law which forbids sex-based discrimination) and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (a federal law which forbids discrimination based on gender dysphoria, including trans and nonbinary identity).

In a February 28 letter to the Oklahoma state legislature, over 350 public figures and LGBTQ+ rights groups urged the legislature to remove Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Walters has been blamed for causing Benedict’s death due to his anti-LGBTQ+ advocacy.

In January, Walters appointed Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who goes by Libs of TikTok on social media, to serve on a state book-banning committee. Raichik doesn’t live in the state and has no experience in education. Her previous social media posts have led to death threats against educators, something she has celebrated.

“In the weeks following Nex’s death, numerous youths have come forward to detail the rampant harassment of Oklahoma’s 2SLGBTQI+ students by peers, teachers, and administrators,” the letter stated. “Superintendent Walters’ reprehensible conduct shows a willful rejection of his duty to protect the health and welfare of the children in Oklahoma’s public schools and instead has created an environment that allows for hostility and harm for youth like Nex.”

The letter was signed by GLAAD, GLSEN, It Gets Better, Lambda Legal, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the National LGBTQ Task Force, PFLAG, The Trevor Project, and numerous state and national queer-allied social justice organizations.

Local police have said that they’re investigating Benedict’s death as a possible murder.