HONOLULU (AP) – A Hawaii woman won a seat on the state Board of Education and, according to national advocacy groups, a place in history as the nation’s highest-ranking transgender elected official.

Kim Coco Iwamoto, a 38-year-old attorney, did not tout her gender status in the campaign but has advocated for transgender youth and related issues. She came in third on Nov. 7 in the competition for three seats on the 14-member board, which governs the islands’ 285 public schools.

Iwamoto would be the highest-ranking openly transgender person elected in the U.S., said Denis Dison, a spokesperson for the Victory Fund, a Washington-based group that tracks GLBT candidates and helps fund their campaigns.

Iwamoto, who was born on the island of Kauai and attended a Catholic boys school in Honolulu, did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.

Previously elected transgender candidates in the U.S. were primarily limited to local seats such as city alderman or councilmembers, Dison said.

Iwamoto has a law degree from the University of New Mexico. She was featured in a handbook on transgender policy for her advocacy of special restroom facilities on the school’s campus after she was harassed for using the women’s bathroom.

COUNTRY CLUB HILLS (AP) – The board of Bremen High School District 228 deliberated for nearly eight hours before deciding on Nov. 9 to fire superintendent Rich Mitchell, who was suspended in part for a joke video he created from interviews with incoming teachers.

Mitchell, who had been superintendent since 2004, said the board wanted him out because he is gay, and his attorney, Jim Madigan, said he would file a discrimination complaint with the Cook County Commission on Human Rights.

But Ray Hauser, an attorney representing the district, called the discrimination allegation “ridiculous,” and said Mitchell was fired in a 4-2 vote for his poor leadership, not his sexual preference.

School Board President Evelyn Gleason said the district had 12 charges against Mitchell, many concerning poor communication with the board and lack of cooperation with district administrators.

But Mitchell contends the board continually undermined his leadership, even undoing some of his programs, such as student mentoring.

He said the push to fire him gained momentum after he and his lawyer alerted the district to his claim of sexual discrimination in late September. He was suspended with pay Oct. 3.

In the video that brought Mitchell’s case to public attention, he took videotaped interviews with new teachers, spliced in his own gag questions and jokingly portrayed the faculty members as killers, strippers and drug users. Mitchell first aired the video for an Aug. 24 back-to-school staff seminar. About 500 faculty and staff members from the district’s four high schools in the Chicago suburbs of Tinley Park, Midlothian, Country Club Hills and Oak Forest were there for a discussion about how to bring humor and laughter to the workplace.

At one point in the video, Mitchell was shown asking “How do you like to unwind?” The tape cuts to a teacher who replies: “I enjoy a lot of leisure activities.”

“Such as?” Mitchell asked. “Killing,” said the teacher.

His supporters said the teachers loved the video and asked him to make it available to them on the Internet. Madigan said Mitchell asked a staff member to create a link on the district’s Web site that would have made the video available to faculty only, not to the public. But her lack of technical expertise resulted in the video being available to all, even students. It was later pulled from the Web site, but a burned copy made its way to some media outlets after Mitchell said he intended to file a discrimination lawsuit, Madigan said.

BOSTON (AP) – Fired talk show host John DePetro on Nov. 9 asked his former bosses for his job back, and questioned if they were either applying a double standard to him or slipping toward censorship.

DePetro was fired Nov. 3 after he called gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross a “fat lesbian” during his Nov. 2 show on WRKO-AM.

DePetro’s lawyer, Peter Bellotti, said DePetro faxed a letter to Entercom asking to be rehired and offering to take sensitivity training. He also proposed an hourlong weekly show with Ross, called “Amazing Grace,” in which they would debate issues of interest to her supporters.

DePetro said in a statement he was wrongly silenced and that a stricter standard was applied to him than morning talk show hosts John Dennis and Gerry Callahan, who work at WEEI-AM, also an Entercom station. Dennis and Callahan were suspended and received sensitivity training in 2003 after comparing an escaped gorilla to a student in the Metco program, a voluntary busing program that enrolls Boston students in suburban schools.

Jason Wolfe, Entercom Boston vice president of AM programming and operations, said DePetro would not be rehired.

FERNDALE (AP) – A Detroit suburb that twice defeated ballot proposals to ban anti-gay discrimination has voted to add sexual orientation to its civil rights ordinance.

Ferndale voters approved the measure 5,428 to 2,897 on Nov, 7, according to unofficial final results from the Oakland County clerk’s office.

The measure makes it a civil infraction to discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation in access to public services, housing and employment.

Ferndale voters defeated a similar measure in 1991 and again, narrowly, in 2000.

Twelve Michigan communities have passed similar measures, according to Sean Kosofsky, policy director of the gay rights group the Triangle Foundation.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) – Missouri State University has settled a lawsuit brought by a social work student who claimed she was retaliated against because she refused to support gays and lesbians adopting children as part of a class project.

The university said it reached an out-of-court settlement Nov. 8 with Emily Brooker, who graduated from the program.

The school pledged to find ways to better communicate its policy on freedom of expression and religion.

“We acted on these allegations as soon as we became aware of them the afternoon of Oct. 30,” Missouri State President Michael T. Nietzel said in a statement.

“Although our investigation did not support all of the allegations made in the lawsuit, we were concerned about some of the actions that we did learn about,” Nietzel said.

Nietzel did not specify which actions raised concerns.

Missouri State said the professor named in Brooker’s lawsuit has stepped down as head of the Master of Social Work Program. Frank G. Kauffman remains an assistant professor but has been reassigned to nonclassroom duties for the remainder of the fall semester.

Brooker’s federal lawsuit claimed the retaliation against her Christian beliefs violated her First Amendment right to free speech.

In the complaint, Brooker said she was accused of violating the school’s Standards of Essential Functioning in Social Work Education.

She said Kauffman accused her of the violation after he assigned a project that required the entire class to write and sign a letter to the Missouri Legislature in support of adoption by gay and lesbian couples. Brooker said her Christian beliefs required her to refuse to sign the letter.

Under the terms of the settlement, Missouri State said it will clear Brooker’s official record of a grievance filed in the case and pay Brooker $9,000.

The school also will waive academic fees for two years of degree work toward a Master of Social Work degree or pay the equivalent of about $12,000. It will also pay living expenses for two years of graduate education.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The executive director of the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin says approval of the marriage amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution last week was just the first piece of an effort to build a “culture of marriage” in the state.

“We want to see marriage rates increase, cohabitation decrease, divorce rates decrease,” Julaine Appling said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, adding that she’s interested in “stopping the bleeding of no-fault divorce.”

Fifty-nine percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment on Nov. 7 that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman and says the state cannot give a legal status similar to marriage to unmarried individuals.

Appling and Mike Tate, the campaign manager for amendment opponent Fair Wisconsin, said they exchanged friendly phone messages after the results were announced.

Appling said she told Tate that the debate was “about the amendment and the institution of marriage.”

She added that she and her organization never viewed gays and lesbians as “the enemy.”

“It wasn’t about gay-bashing,” she said.

Tate told the Journal Sentinel that the campaign started a long conversation about gay rights in Wisconsin.

“The goal of any campaign is to win,” he said. “Another one of our goals is to change the way people think about an issue.”

Tate said the gay and lesbian community “can be a leader in a larger movement for change” and a long-term “electoral player” in the state.