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LGBT witnesses back D.C. anti-bullying bills
ACLU says legislation could violate students’ civil liberties
D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent Gray presided over a hearing this week on two bills to address bullying and harassment in public schools. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Nine witnesses representing the LGBT community expressed strong support for two bills aimed at prohibiting bullying in D.C. schools, public libraries and parks during a City Council hearing this week.
The LGBT witnesses, including two gay and one transgender student, gave examples of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in the D.C. public school system. They joined other witnesses in noting that existing public school policies pertaining to bullying were not strong enough to adequately address the problem.
“The District of Columbia has been a pioneer on issues such as nondiscrimination in schools and yet is one of only a handful of jurisdictions in this country without an anti-bullying law,” said Alison Gill, a public policy associate with the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
Gill and other witnesses pointed to the 2009 D.C. Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a federally funded study that includes data on lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. Among other things, the study found that 29 percent of LGB teens in the city’s middle schools and high schools have attempted suicide. The study did not collect data on transgender students.
Anti-gay bullying and harassment are believed to have played a large role in prompting the youth to consider suicide, Gill and other witnesses said.
D.C. Mayor-elect Vincent Gray presided over the hearing in his current role as City Council Chair and chair of the Council’s Committee of the Whole. He takes office as mayor on Jan. 2.
The Committee of the Whole and the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation, which is chaired by Council member Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5), conducted a joint hearing on the two bills, the Bullying Prevention Act of 2010 and the Harassment and Intimidation Prevention Act of 2010.
Gray said after the hearing that the two bills would be combined following a markup hearing that he predicted would take place sometime next year.
“I don’t see the evidence of a comprehensive policy existing in the city on this,” Gray told reporters after the hearing, saying a combined version of the two bills would go a long way to address the problem of bullying.
The Bullying Prevention Act, which Gray and Council member Michael Brown (I-At-Large) introduced in April, calls for developing a “model policy prohibiting bullying, harassment and intimidation in the District of Columbia public schools.” It requires all public schools to adopt an anti-bullying and harassment policy at least as strong as the model policy defined in the bill.
The Harassment and Intimidation Prevention Act, which was introduced in October by Thomas, calls for developing similar policies banning bullying and harassment but expands the coverage to D.C. public charter schools, the city’s public libraries and parks and recreation centers, and to the University of the District of Columbia.
Thomas’s bill also covers bullying and harassment conducted through “electronic communication,” such as e-mail or social networking sites.
The bill defines harassment, intimidation or bullying as “any gesture or written, verbal or physical act, including electronic communication, that is reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or a mental, physical or sensory handicap, or by any other distinguishing characteristic…”
It says an act of bullying, intimidation or harassment would be one that “a reasonable person should know, under the circumstances, will have the effect of harming a student or damaging the student’s property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm to his person or damage to his property.”
The definition further states that the act in question “has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students in such as way as to cause substantial disruption in, or substantial interference with, the orderly operation of a school, university, recreation facility, or library.”
Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the D.C. chapter of the ACLU, said the ACLU supports the concept of anti-bullying legislation but has concerns that the wording of the two proposed bills in D.C. could violate students’ civil liberties.
“What does it mean by harming a student?” he said of part of the definition in one of the bills. “Does that mean hurting a student’s feelings? If a student comes in and says I feel very harmed by the fact that so and so said I was a crappy athlete … That’s not bullying,” he said.
“So I think the language here needs to be tightened up.”
Spitzer told the Washington Post that it would be “perfectly legitimate” for a student to say he or she thinks homosexual conduct is “against the word of God.” Although such a comment might hurt the feelings of a gay student, that should not be defined as bullying but instead as “an opinion that every student has a right to express,” he told the Post.
GLSEN spokesperson Daryl Presgraves said GLSEN believes the language in the two D.C. bills would not violate students’ civil liberties. But he said GLSEN and others supporting the bills would be open to making changes if the ACLU demonstrates that the language would prevent students from expressing their opinions in a way that doesn’t cross the line of true bullying and harassment.
Trina Cole, a male to female transgender student who graduated in 2009 from D.C.’s Dunbar Senior High School, told the hearing she was victimized by harassment and intimidation that went far beyond hurting her feelings.
“At school, I was often both verbally and physically abused,” she said. “We need to have more support in our schools so that the bullying that I went through does not continue to happen every day.”
Cole testified on behalf of Metro Teen AIDS, a D.C.-based group that provides services to LGBT youth at risk for HIV.
Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian for the city’s public library system; Jesus Auguirre, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation; and Mark Farley, vice president of the Office of Human Resources for the University of the District of Columbia each expressed strong support for the two bills.
A spokesperson for the D.C. public schools did not appear before the hearing. Gray said the person expected to testify had a scheduling conflict and was expected to submit written testimony within the next week.
Gay activist and ANC commissioner-elect Bob Summersgill noted that the D.C. Public Schools currently use city-adopted regulations pertaining to student discipline as a basis for addressing bullying and harassment of students. A provision of the city’s Human Rights Act and a March 2000 directive by the then D.C. schools superintendent are also used as a patchwork of rules or laws to address bullying.
“The limitations in all of these laws and regulations are the implementation and enforcement,” Summersgill told the hearing. “If a school fails to make clear that bullying will not be tolerated, or if a teacher or staff fails to intervene when bullying occurs, or if a teacher or staff makes a derogatory comment or through inaction shows their distaste for some group, then they are tacitly giving approval of bullying and harassment,” he said.
Michael Musante, an official with Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS), which advocates for D.C.’s public charter schools, said the group did not support the proposed legislation, saying charter schools were formed as semi-autonomous institutions independent from city control.
He said many charter schools already have anti-bullying polices and said charter schools prefer to address bullying through school disciplinary codes rather than “one-size-fits-all legislation.”
Gray and Council member Michael Brown, speaking after the hearing, said they favor including charter schools in the legislation before the Council.
“They have over 30,000 of our kids being educated with public money,” Gray said of the charter schools.
Others who testified in favor of the bills at the hearing included Renee Reopell, program associate for the D.C. LGBT community center; Peter Rosenstein, LGBT community activist; Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance; Bill Briggs, executive director of Metro D.C. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); and Andrew Barnett, executive director of Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL).
District of Columbia
Gay candidate running for D.C. congressional delegate seat
Robert Matthews among 19 hoping to replace Eleanor Holmes Norton
Robert Matthews, a former director of the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, is running in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat as an openly gay candidate, according to a statement released by his campaign to the Washington Blade.
Matthews is one of at least 19 candidates running to replace longtime D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), who announced earlier this year that she is not running for re-election.
Information about the candidates’ campaign financing compiled by the Federal Elections Commission, which oversees elections for federal candidates, shows that Matthews is one of only six of the candidates who have raised any money for their campaigns as of March 17.
Among those six, who political observers say have a shot at winning compared to the remaining 13, are D.C. Council members Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) and Robert White (D-At-Large). Both have longstanding records of support for LGBTQ rights and the community.
The FEC campaign finance records show Matthews was in fourth place regarding the money raised for his campaign, which was $49,078 as of March 17. The FEC records show Pinto’s campaign in first place with $843,496 raised, and White in third place with $230,399 raised.
The Matthews campaign statement released to the Blade says Matthews’s “commitment to the LGBTQ community is not a campaign position. It is the foundation of his life and his life’s work.”
The statement adds, “As the former director of D.C.’s Child and Family Services Agency, Robert led the District’s child welfare system with an explicit commitment to LGBTQ-affirming care.” It goes on to say, “He ensured that LGBTQ, trans, and nonbinary youth in foster care — among the most vulnerable young people in our city — were served with dignity, cultural humility, and genuine support.”
Among his priorities if elected as Congressional delegate, the statement says, would be “fighting to end homelessness among queer and trans seniors and youth,” opposing “federal roadblocks” to LGBTQ related health services, and defending D.C.’s budget and civil rights laws “from federal interference that directly threatens LGBTQ residents.”
The other three candidates who the FEC records show have raised campaign funds and observers say have a shot at winning are:
• Kinney Zalesne, former deputy national finance chair at the Democratic National Committee and an official at the U.S. Justice Department during the Clinton administration, whose campaign is in second place in fundraising with $593,885 raised.
• Gordon Chaffin, a former congressional staffer whose campaign has raised $17,950.
• Kelly Mikel Williams, a podcast host and candidate for the Congressional Delegate seat in 2022 and 2024, whose 2026 campaign has raised $3,094 as of March 17.
The Blade reached out to the Zelesne, Chaffin, and Williams campaigns to determine their position on LGBTQ issues. As of late Wednesday, the Zelesne campaign was the only one that responded.
“Kinney believes LGBTQ rights are fundamental civil rights and central to what makes Washington, D.C. a strong and vibrant community,” a statement sent by her campaign says. “At a time when LGBTQ people (especially transgender and nonbinary neighbors) are facing escalating political attacks across the country, she believes the District must continue to lead in protecting dignity, safety, and freedom for all,” it says.
The statement adds, “Throughout her career in government, business, and nonprofit leadership, Kinney has worked alongside LGBTQ and queer advocates and leaders. She is committed to maintaining an active partnership with the community to make sure LGBTQ voices remain central to the District’s future.”
District of Columbia
Man charged with carjacking, kidnapping after having sex in D.C. park pleads guilty
Arrest followed year-long investigation into incident at Fort Dupont Park
A D.C. man initially charged with armed carjacking, armed kidnapping, and armed robbery of a male victim he met and with whom he engaged in sex at D.C.’s Fort Dupont Park in September 2024 pleaded guilty on March 12 to two lesser charges as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors.
Records filed in D.C. Superior Court show that Da’Andre Pardlow, 31, who has been held in jail since the time of his arrest in December 2025, pleaded guilty to unarmed carjacking and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. Court records show the agreement includes a recommendation by prosecutors that Pardlow be sentenced to seven years in prison.
The agreement allows him to withdraw the guilty plea if the judge rejects the sentencing recommendation and calls for a harsher sentence. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Superior Court Judge Robert Salermo on May 29.
Details of the incident that led to Pardlow’s arrest and guilty plea are included in a 12-page arrest affidavit prepared by U.S. Park Police detective Christopher Edmund, the lead investigator in the case.
According to the affidavit, which is part of the public court records, Park Police received a call at approximately 6:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2024, regarding an armed robbery that occurred around 3 a.m. that day at D.C.’s Fort Dupont Park. The affidavit says Park Police officers drove the person who called, who is identified only as Victim 1 or V-1, from his residence to the Park Police Anacostia Operations facility where he was interviewed.
“V-1 reported that they were at their residence at approximately 2:30 a.m. on September 13, 2024, and decided to drive to Fort Dupont Park in hopes of meeting a man for a sexual encounter,” the affidavit states. “V-1 arrived at Fort Dupont Park at approximately 3:00 a.m. and parked their vehicle on the south side of Alabama Avenue, SE, in Washington, D.C. adjacent to the park entrance,” the affidavit continues.
It says the victim stated the park was empty and he decided to leave, but while walking back to his car he encountered a black male appearing in his 20s or 30s and gave a full description of the man’s appearance and clothing, saying he was wearing a ski mask.
“V-1 and the male conversed and agreed to engage in consensual sexual acts on a bench under the pavilion near the restroom,” the affidavit says. It says V-1 then told detectives that the man, who is initially identified only as Suspect 1 or S-1, “had ejaculated onto V-1’s face. V-1 then used a napkin that he found on the ground nearby to wipe S-1’s semen from V-1’s face. V-1 then discarded the napkin on the ground.”
The affidavit states that investigators later recovered the napkin and through DNA testing linked the semen to Pardlow. But prior to that, it says during their sexual encounter in the park V-1 agreed to suspect 1’s request that he take off all his clothes.
“When V-1 disrobed, S-1 got behind V-1 and held a hard, metal item that V-1 believed to be a handgun, to the back of V-1’s head,” according to the affidavit. It says V-1 added that S-1 “threatened to shoot him ‘over and over again’” if he did not comply with S-1’s demands to surrender his phone and wallet, provide the code to access the phone, and then to take possession of and drive V-1’s car to a nearby bank, with V-1 sitting in the passenger’s seat, to withdraw money from V-1’s bank account. The affidavit says he withdrew $500 from V-1’s account at a Bank of America ATM at 3821 Minnesotta Ave., NE.
“S-1 then drove V-1 back to the park and told them to get their clothes, which were still in the pavilion area,” the affidavit says. “When V-1 exited the vehicle, S-1 drove out of the park in V-1’s vehicle at a high rate of speed toward Massachusetts Avenue,” it says. “V-1 walked back to their residence and contacted the police.”
The affidavit says that over the course of the next several months investigators used tracking devices linked to V-1’s car, cell phone, and Apple Watch that Pardlow had taken to locate the car and a residence where Pardlow was possibly living.
The Park Police investigators also pulled up FBI DNA records to identify a suspect that matched the DNA sample taken from the napkin V1 used at the park to a man arrested in Prince George’s County, Md., on an unrelated charge of Use of a Firearm In A Violent Felony. That person turned out to be Da’Andre Pardlow, the affidavit states.
It says investigators obtained additional evidence linking Pardlow to the park incident involving V-1, including video images of his face from a Bank of America security camera at the time he withdraws money from V-1’s ATM account. A tracking of Pardlow’s own mobile phone also placed him at the site of the park at the time of his alleged interaction with V-1.
When Park Police detectives first interviewed Pardlow at the Eastern Correctional Institute prison in Westover, Md., where he was being held in connection with the unrelated firearm arrest, “he denied having ever been to Fort Dupont Park since he was in high school and said that he had no involvement in this incident,” the affidavit says.
Court records show a warrant was obtained for his arrest on Nov. 25, 2025, for the Fort Dupont incident and he was officially charged on Dec. 17, 2025, with Armed Carjacking, Robbery While Armed, and Kidnapping While Armed.
Pardlow’s attorney, Patrick Nowak, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Pardlow’s decision to plead guilty to the lesser charges of Unarmed Carjacking and Possession of a Firearm During A Crime of Violence, with the other charges being dropped by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C.
District of Columbia
D.C. journalist, video producer Sean Bartel dies at 48
Beloved member of Gay Flag Football League found deceased on hiking trail in Argentina
Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024, was found deceased on a hiking trail near a glacier in Argentina on or around March 15, according to a report by an Argentine newspaper.
The newspaper Clarín reports no foul play was suspected regarding his death, and other local media reports indicate authorities believe he suffered some sort of accident while on the hiking trail.
The Clarín report says Bartel arrived in Argentina on March 3 and visited Buenos Aires and the city of El Chaltén, which is near Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park and a glacial lagoon popular with hikers. It says his body was found on the trail leading to the glacier.
“The D.C. Gay Flag Football League is heartbroken to learn of the passing of Sean Bartel, one of the most devoted members this league has ever known,” the organization said in a statement. “The story of DCGFFL could not be told without Sean.”
“He was not only a dedicated teammate and a model league member – he was our storyteller and our champion, honoring the competitive greatness, the radiant humor, and the beautiful bonds that make our community so special,” the statement says.
It adds that for years, Bartel served as “our man behind the camera, he drew our community tighter by portraying us with the skill of a professional and the care of a family member.”
Bartel’s LinkedIn page shows he most recently worked for 12 years as Senior Video Producer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which is described as North America’s largest labor union.
Matt Spense, a spokesperson for the union, told the Washington Blade that Bartel resigned from his job there in 2024 to pursue other career endeavors, but he didn’t know what he did career wise after that time.
Bartel’s LinkedIn page shows he served as a video producer and account supervisor at the Edelman global communications firm based in D.C. from 2010-2013. Prior to that, he worked as a reporter for Sirius XM Radio, Inc. from 2007 to 2012. It shows that from a little over a year — from 2009 to 2010 — he worked as video producer and account executive for the firm North Ridge Communications, but it doesn’t give the company’s location.
He began his career in journalism, his LinkedIn page shows, as a reporter and news and sports anchor at the WHAS TV station in Louisville, Ky., from January 2005 through January 2008.
It says he received a bachelor’s degree in Sports Marketeing and Management in 1999 from Indiana University in Bloomington and a master’s degree from the School of Media and Public Affairs from D.C.’s George Washington University in 2010.
The Blade couldn’t immediately obtain information about surviving family members or funeral arrangements.
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