i have spent as much time on this issue as any issue and i speak as not simply -- i approach it not simply from the perspective of a civil rights lawyer, i approach it from the perspective of a parent of 3 and that informs my judgment as much as -- and my passion for this as much as anything. i can't promise, i don't know when we're going to be able to declare victory. i look at so many of the civil rights issues of our time and they have remained all too persistent but that doesn't mean we cannot continue to be dogged and i think we've seen successes. success didn't come soon enough for you and that is tragic and that's what motivates me and others to continue this work and so i hope we'll continue it together and i hope we'll be persistent. i hope we'll just demand it and as we continue to demand it, i think we'll make

progress. >> my heart is heavy for your experience. i can't imagine that this will make you feel any better, nor is it my intent that you do because i wouldn't, quite frankly, belittle your grief with new laws that can't bring your son back. four years ago when what happened to you happened, we didn't have a federal government that ensured that lgbt youth were going to be protected by the nation's civil rights laws, and now we do. seth's mother, nothing we could do to bring seth walsh back. nothing we could do could ensure that her pain or the pain that he and his family and his community suffered through

the many years that he was ridiculed and abused and beaten because he was a member of the lgbt community, could bring him back. but what we have in place there, what i want to believe with all that i am that we would have had in place at that school in sacramento if it happened now or any time in the last 3 year, 3 1/2 years, would have been not just an accountability document, but a promise made publicly that we post on our web sites so that when we leave and leaders leave, community can ensure that those resolutions become what they are supposed to be, which are contracts between two parties committed to change so that promises made are promises kept. and i assure you, as secretary

duncan has said, that we significance vigorously ensure, we absolutely will take all your federal money because that is what we have the ability to do and no federal dollars on education should be spent in places that are come play e come play sent or don't step up, as the first lady says, to ensure that fundamental fairness. >> thank you to tom and ruslyn and thank you for reminding us why we are all here. thank you. (applause). >> thank you so much, tom, and ruslyn and lieutenant governor, we appreciate it. let's move right into the

second panel, the effects of bullying on young people, we've already made that transition and their families. what should schools do. our next panel the focus on the effects of bullying on young people. our moderator is cheryl jennings, award-winning journalist and a pioneer in children's issues and women's rights. cheryl has won emmy awards on her work for caring on aging parents and a program aimed at teenager called straight talking teens. cheryl received an emmy nomination for her 6-part series on the children of kosovo, she was selected by the league of women voters as one of the six women who could be president. ladies and gentlemen, cheryl jennings.

>> i wanted to let you know that i got to see the bully movie yesterday with mr. caranza and 800 kids and melinda who was wearing her stop bullying tee shirt, so cute. it was an amazing experience and that video is in my head and the tears are in my heart for everybody that's lost a child. we're going to see a video right now that will set the tone of this panel. it will affect you. i saw it this morning so it would be appreciate in my head. you are going to meet the father who is featured in this video so i ask you to put down your electronic devices, your i pads and c phones please and pay attention to this and just be in the moment. if we can roll that dvd, please.

(inaudible) funny, most of the times bossy. she would be over at their house, guys, let's not watch tv, let's go do something because i only have two hours before i have to go home and i want to do something. >> jill started out her freshman year in high school as a cheerleader. she started cheering in the summertime so that when she got to her first day of freshman year, she was well known at the high school already and she was a flyer on the cheer team. always meant to fly. >> cheerleading wasn't just pompoms, it was standing on other shoulders and doing some pretty dramatic events but also

being a flyer, the one on the top of the pyramid, she was the one that was most visible, she was the one that became a star. in december, jill's behavior began to change a little bit. we noticed she began to pull away from the family. >> we worked very hard to let her do the things she wanted to do and keep it in a safe environment that we had some control over. and that was a difficult task and we worked long hours discussing it with her and what we felt was important and how she should behave. >> what went through my mind was initially the feeling that she was a teenager, i knew jill was very strong in hr personality and i knew that she was a good kid, a really good

-- both my daughters are great kids. she was just exploring her sort of self-identity and i saw it as a way for her to become independent so i supported it. but it frustrated me that she was pushing away from the family. >> the day jill died i walked into her bedroom to wake her up around 11:00 am and i walked in and the dogs jumped up on the bed and she said a sweet hello to me. and i said i was concerned because she was sleeping late and i thought she should get up and get started on her day, because it was sunday. >> i came home and saw jill had been, she was awake and she was talking but she wouldn't talk to me. i thought she was just mad because i cut her

curfew. >> we all proceeded to get settled and i began making dinner. i went to get her for dinner just shortly after 6:00 pm >> (inaudible) jill's door, it was atypical for it to be locked. i knocked on the door, went around -- nothing happened. so she went around to an adjoining bathroom and entered jill's room from the bathroom. >> and i found her hanging from her closet door, hunched over on the ground. >> that's when i heard polly scream. i came running, i knew something was wrong. and polly kept calling out, she hung herself, she hung herself. by that time polly was able to get to the door so i came through

the front door of jill's room and i was struggling to lift jill and at the same time manipulate the ligature off her neck. polly had grabbed a pair of scissors and she cut the ligature and brought her down. and i rested her down and i started cpr as well as i could or tried the best i could. and i remember looking at jill's face and realizing that her eyes were dilated and fixed, which means they weren't moving, so i knew that that wasn't good. >> and that was our nightmare.

>> a parent came to us, we'd known her personally, the whole family, for a long time. and she told me, she asked -- i thank her for the courage it took to come forward. she said, i don't know how to tell you this, but i think there's so much going on. >> she told us her son had come to her and told her there was a picture jill had sent to him in december naked in her body and it had been passed to another boy and then to another boy and put up on the internet.

>> he told me he had these pictures of jill and he was telling everybody that they were on his email account. so everybody went on the email account and they saw and they sent them to themselves just to have them just to, i don't know, just to --. >> we were very surprised when she told us about the picture. we had no idea. jill was very private, we couldn't understand why she would send something like that to a boy that she wasn't a boyfriend, it was just a friend. >> our first thought, this isn't true. we first thought this can't be true. then i thought, i need to at least know, i need to at least pursue this and bring it to the attention of the police department. >> we started talking a lot

in, like, december. that's when i asked for the pictures, i showed my friend, i didn't send it to him, i just showed it to him. like a month passed by, like a month and a half, no one knew about the picture and stuff. >> i honestly don't think anyone had the intention of embarrassing her. i think they just wanted, oh, check it out, top dog, i got so and so's naked, check it out. i would only think it was for popularity, not malicious intent. >> people were talking about how it went from one person to another and then went on the internet. >> one week prior to her committing suicide she was very, very much on her mind that she was troubled about the picture and how far it had gone and how many people were seeing the picture. she was texting

friends that she was going to commit suicide, she might as well commit suicide. >> i think i should have known the police would get involved but i didn't think about it until, you know, i got called in or 4 police officers standing there, like, bringing me into a conference room, interrogating me about it. i was just, it was one of the scariest things i've ever had to do. that's when it hit me, oh, my god, we're in trouble. >> later we heard from a police officer little pieces of information that this was -- actually happened and he had interviewed severald