Shantelle Hicks, Pregnant 8th Grader, Outed To New Mexico School Assembly (VIDEO)

Shantelle Hicks, a 15-year-old from Gallup, N.M., claims she was first forced to leave the Wingate Elementary School and then publicly outed as being pregnant in front of all students and employees, KOB-TV reports.

Wingate Elementary is a public boarding school for Native American children from kindergarten through 8th grade.

Now, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Hicks has filed suit against the school, claiming they violated her constitutional rights. According to the complaint, school officials kicked Hicks out of school after learning of her pregnancy, but readmitted her four days later when the ACLU of New Mexico informed the school that it's illegal to deny a student access to education for being pregnant.

But two weeks after her readmission, a school counselor and the director of the middle school forced the teen to stand before the middle school assembly and announced her condition -- allegedly before anyone but her sister knew.

“It was so embarrassing to have all the other kids staring at me as I walked into the gymnasium,” said Hicks, according to KOB. “I didn’t want the whole school to know I was pregnant because it’s not their business, and it wasn’t right for my teachers to single me out.”

According to the suit, school officials informed Hicks that she would be a "bad example" to other students, and requested she attend another school, a Washington Post local report states.

“It is outrageous that educators would subject a young woman in their care to such cruelty,” ACLU of New Mexico cooperating attorney Barry Klopfer said, according to the Indian Country Today Community Network.

The girl's mother, Vicky Hicks, says her daughter's public humiliation was wrong.

"[Students] shouldn't be treated differently because they're pregnant," Hicks told KOAT-TV.

The lawsuit was filed on March 6th and seeks punitive damages and declaratory relief for violation of constitutional rights to equal protection and of the Title IX prohibition against sex and pregnancy discrimination in education.

WATCH:

Comments

[Amy Mascarenas]

02:10 PM on 07/03/2012

i used to go to school with her. shes the nicest person ever, and doesnt diserve that treatment, but gallup is famous for its wrongful doings when dealing with school matters.

[SharJoyce]

01:54 AM on 04/02/2012

I am outraged at the events that this young mother HAD TO ENDURE from school in front of her peer group. How could teacher's act so shamefully? Shantelle's rights have definitely been violated and hold the school corporation at fault for the suffering and I am sure that I am not the only one who is very proud of this young woman. This is a time in a young woman's life when she needs emotional support from her teachers, Shantelle was subjected to attend an assembly of students and teachers and admit that she was pregnant. Just what purpose did that humiliating act stand for? Shantelle is a very responsible young woman who just happened to make a "mistake" - she could have aborted her daughter. She could have been a girl who "had her baby in a public restroom" and then throw the baby in to a dumpster! There are many others ways to dispose of a small body. We hear of that being done on TV, in the newspaper and so on.

Instead of criticizing Shantelle, give her or any new teen mother a break! Shantelle & her little girl have a long and winding road ahead. I am sure that they need support instead of ridicule, congratulations instead of whispers & stares. This is a woman who did not bow down to the school associations instead she is taking on the school corporation for the IMMENSE Pain and Suffering that they caused this girl and her child.

[Churchmouse]

04:36 PM on 03/29/2012

I hope they take every last dime these people have. No school has the right to out anyone. They are an institution of learning. Nothing more. If they want to be righteous then they should put on a robe and chase little boys around like the rest of the preachers.

[Scheherazade Brown]

04:45 PM on 03/15/2012

and to what degree-felony has these professional adults been charged?

[di1428]

02:16 PM on 03/14/2012

This isn't the first teen to get pregnant and unfortunately wont be the last......
but banning her from school is not going to solve any problems.it will cause more.. then she goes on welfare because she cant get a decent job because of lack of education, and the vicious cycle continues.
just because someones a young mother doesn't mean they dont deserve an education.
and definitely doesnt deserve to be treated the way the school treated her..talk about gossipers and bullies and they're grown ups?

[guest0]

07:48 PM on 03/23/2012

many other ways to be educated without public schooling. read john holt. she prob wouldnt be pregnant either.

[di1428]

11:09 AM on 03/26/2012

public education is open to everyone.

[SmileAndActNice]

11:03 PM on 03/12/2012

For those about to read the thread .. there are some really nasty people down there. If you read further you will read words of people who eagerly advocate forcibly ending her education in retaliation for pregnancy.

The people advocating this have three basic arguments.

1 - She was bad and must be punished.

This is put most succinctly by Sultry who refers to education as a "treasure" that she "squandered" by being pregnant and must now be deprived of although PatriotDad's portrayal of a 14 year old girl as a soulless succubus bullying some poor virginal boy into sex against his will would be funny if he wasn't being serious.

2 - Think of the ( other ) children!

This is various ways of suggesting that pregnancy will somehow harm the other children with its proximity and she must be exiled for their good. How, precisely, this will happen they are vague on. Though one suggested that the other kids might find morning sickness and the other symptoms of pregnancy "cool" and decide to copy her.

3 - She's lying to get the school in trouble!

Of course, normally when people make up such stories they don't claim to have an auditorium full of witnesses that can easily confirm/deny it.

---

Anywho, notice something in common?

They all acknowledge that kicking her out is bad for her.

They just vary between reveling in the idea of harming this child, to not caring about her.

[Sultry]

03:00 PM on 03/13/2012

Yeah, We noticed this story must be awful close to yours. We also noticed somebody must be out of medication, or needs it changed. It's not working for you. We also noticed only one person went on a rant to prove something that really got lost in the babbling. Bottom line here is No most of us don't care about you, or this girl. It's a story on the Net. If it's your story so what. Both of you made your beds now wallow in it with no husband.

[skunky93]

07:20 AM on 03/15/2012

No, YOU don't care. Big difference. Move on heartless one...move on to act as vulture on another story.

[Seven Teenatheart]

06:35 PM on 03/14/2012

I agree with you.

The lack of care for this child, and lack of feeling of community (we are one nation, that is a community) is truly disturbing.

[cydRN]

10:41 PM on 03/12/2012

They violated her HIPPA rights, that's Federally actionable.

[Sultry]

03:02 PM on 03/13/2012

Not if she signed a release of medical information form. I'm pretty sure a school would have all students sign one just in case someone got hurt.

[Sultry]

04:47 PM on 03/12/2012

I think they should have outed him, I'm thinking he must have been at another school, or just some boy from the neighborhood, being the reason he wasn't outed with her. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The other side of this, that not a single poster has addressed is, These people are Navajo. That means, they have their own laws, and ways of doing things that our courts recognize and don't interfere with. What we think, or would do does not mean a thing. So this may very well have been the way they handle the business of unwed teen pregnancies. I'm sure she is not the first, and with all the problems you do hear of on reservations unwed teen pregnancy is not high on the list. There has to be a reason for this, and it just might be the custom of public humiliation

[SmileAndActNice]

11:07 PM on 03/12/2012

So you also advocate that the father be kicked out of school?

Haivng fornicated has he not also "squandered" the gift of education?

I mean, I don't see how either of them has but if her having sex means no more school then he to should be brain-starved henceforth.

[c8edid]

12:11 AM on 03/13/2012

Yes, they have their own cultural ways of dealing with teen pregnancy, and so do many other cultures and religious groups--it doesn't make it right or appropriate. I understand that Native Americans struggle with teen pregnancy and a host of other problems on the reservations, but doing something so cruel out of frustration and desperation is not right. My heart goes out to that little girl.

[been2there]

03:55 PM on 03/12/2012

Words of disgust are not sufficient; yeah, she may be a bad example, but the grownups should try acting like grownups!

[JerseyHooligan]

03:45 PM on 03/12/2012

the girl was probably told that condoms were the tool of the devil...

[RML 1]

03:12 PM on 03/12/2012

This is also a case of School administration bullying a student, (besides the wrongful expulsion). This happens all of the time. There was just another highschool where the female principal called out a gay student in front of an entire auditorium of kids. That principal resigned, the Administration in this school should be packing up their office right now. Teachers bully kids just as much as other kids.

[Lynette Cowper]

02:00 PM on 03/12/2012

First, to those who argue that the whole school would have found out anyway, it doesn't matter. Any person has the right to disclose their private information on their own terms-- to whom, when, how, where, and to how many at once that they want. The school had no right to take those decisions out of her hands.

Second, the presumption that they had any rights or business to comment upon or interfere with her reproductive decisions exemplifies a society-wide illness in this country of believing that we have any sort of privilege to dictate what a woman does with her body (outside of acts that endanger others' life and liberty). The primary lesson of that assembly was not "sex can get result in pregnancy, even with precautions" but rather "women's bodies, especially young and minority women, belong to society and we as a society have the right to dictate what a woman does with it, and shame any woman who uses it in a way in which we disapprove."

[Lynette Cowper]

03:33 PM on 03/12/2012

Third, if I were in charge of the firing and hiring decisions of this school, all staff who had contributed to making the decision to have this assembly would be fired, not just because they violated this student's rights, but because they are too stupid to be educating our children. Seriously, this girl has already called in the ACLU to get their unlawful decision to kick her out overturned and you think she WON'T call them in when you violate her rights to the privacy of her medical information? Even if you think this decision was at all moral or ethical, they have demonstrated they are too idiotic to be employed in the field of education.

[Tonyetta Aikins]

10:26 AM on 03/12/2012

Ok it was wrong for the school to call her out like that...but ummmmmmmm, wouldn't the students have found out she was pregnant eventually!!!

[Lynette Cowper]

02:17 PM on 03/12/2012

Assuming she wouldn't have opted for an abortion had she not been outed, it's very likely the students with whom she interacted (which may or may not have been the entire middle school) would have found out eventually, but it would have been on her terms-- when, where, how, to whom, in what order, and how many at once that she chose. This was an egregious abuse of power to interfere in something the school has no right interfering in. If this had been, say, a business and this girl had been an unmarried employee, do you think it would be at all excusable for them to call a meeting of an entire division and force Jane in Accounting to announce to all, all at once-- from her best friend who hangs out with her after work to the guy she sees once a week when he drops off office supplies who thinks her name is Jamie-- that she is pregnant out of wedlock? This is more than "wrong". It's a firing offense.

[newcastlebill]

09:17 AM on 03/12/2012

Did they out the dad??? Why not???

[greytunes]

11:14 PM on 03/11/2012

I guess the next logical(illogical) step to take would be the reintroduction of public stocks and "dunking" seats for the ladies. After all, a good humilation is the best way to get people to beg for forgiveness, isn't it? Humiliation in this form is unwarrented and cruel and the people who did this should be fired.