East Aurora School Board

Illinois’s East Aurora School Board does not have the courage of its convictions, having once again given up on protecting transgender students. In October, the district innocuously passed a policy that would protect transgender students’ ability to identity with their authentic gender. The Illinois Family Institute, an anti-LGBT hate group, objected to the accommodations for “gender-confused teens,” and four days after passing it, the school board rescinded the policy.

Despite caving, there was hope that East Aurora would still do right by its trans students. The board formed an ad hoc committee to explore the issues with a goal of forming an alternative policy. However, when the committee met, over a hundred community members came to protest, claiming that protecting trans students was somehow “destructive” and that it would threaten the safety of other students if they were allowed to use the appropriate bathrooms. These arguments were of course spurred again by the Illinois Family Institute, which went so far as to encourage the bullying of trans students. The outcry overwhelmed the committee, which decided to put the transgender policy on hold. Now, they’ve abandoned it entirely.

The committee was not designed to be effective in the first place. Rather than focus on researching the policy, the committee allowed itself to be overwhelmed by public comment. The crowd was so against the effort that security had to be called to protect committee members. Anthony Martinez, executive director of Illinois LGBT advocacy group The Civil Rights Agenda, sat on the committee and described it as a “failure of leadership”:

MARTINEZ: I think it was a failure of leadership by the school board. I think the folks handling this from the beginning were out of their depth. You only have to look and see that the Ad Hoc committee never once discussed the matter of policy. All we did was sit and listen to people voice their displeasure.

Indeed, the school board’s failure was ever questioning itself in the first place or creating space for a hate group’s influence to play out. The end result was stirred up antipathy towards trans people with no real progress for the safety of the students at risk.

Our guest blogger is Aisha Moodie-Mills, advisor on LGBT Policy and Racial Justice at the Center for American Progress.

The U.S. Senate held a landmark hearing Wednesday on ending the nation’s school-to-prison pipeline that affirmed that gay and transgender youth also face harsher punishments in schools than other students, which disproportionately pipeline them into the juvenile justice system.

Senator Dick Durbin, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, which hosted the hearing, acknowledged in his opening statement that harsh school sanctions — such as zero-tolerance policies — do indeed have a disparate impact on LGBT youth, just as they do on racial and ethnic minorities.  He stated for the record that:

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students are more likely to be disciplined [in schools] and arrested than their peers.

This marks the first time LGBT youth have been officially included in federal efforts to end the school-to-prison pipeline.

According to a report this summer by the Center for American Progress:

• Gay and transgender youth, particularly gender nonconforming girls, are up to three times more likely to experience harsh disciplinary treatment by school administrators than their heterosexual counterparts.

• As with racial disparities in school discipline, these higher rates of punishment do not correlate to higher rates of misbehavior among gay and transgender youth.

• LGBT youth make up 13-15 percent of the juvenile justice system, even though they make-up only 5–7 percent of the population overall, and 60 percent of these youth are black or Latino.

• This high rate of contact with the system is due in part to harsh school sanctions often based on their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

School discipline policies across the United States have been under heightened scrutiny because of the disparate impact they have on youth of color, particularly black boys. Data released this spring from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights revealed that rigid school discipline policies — which lead to suspensions and expulsions of students for even the most minor offenses — perpetuate a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately criminalizes youth of color.

But hidden among these school discipline data are thousands of gay and transgender youth, particularly those of color, who bear a double burden of disparate impact but are rendered all but invisible because this federal data does not include information on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network (GLSEN) submitted testimony that called for measures to collect data on the experiences of LGBT youth with exclusionary discipline and zero tolerance policies:

While many civil rights organizations have the benefit of ample data, collected by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, to support their contention that students of color are disproportionately affected by zero tolerance and other exclusionary discipline policies, there is a relative scarcity of data on how these policies may affect LGBT students…

This data gap has proven to be a significant impediment to our administrative advocacy efforts to protect the rights of LGBT students – as co-equal with all other students – in schools.  While there are several interdepartmental working groups in the federal government focused on studying bullying of LGBT students (which we applaud) there is no serious effort to examine the extent to which official school discipline policy has similar effects on LGBT students as on students of color. Nor do we know whether a disproportionate number of students of color affected by exclusionary discipline may be LGBT.

Ten other leading LGBT organizations also signed on to GLSEN’s statement. Those organizations were: Family Equality Council, Gay-Straight Alliance Network, Human Rights Campaign, National Black Justice Coalition, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, PFLAG National, The Trevor Project, and SMYAL.

A new study from the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) provides a novel look into the experience of LGBT youth who live in rural areas and don’t access to the same support structures as those in urban or suburban areas. This isolation leads to heightened incidents of student victimization and an unsafe school climate, which in turn negatively impact students’ academic performance and aspirations for post-secondary education.

Here are some of the chilling findings based on responses from rural LGBT students:

• Victimization based on sexual orientation at school: 87 percent reported being verbally harassed, 45 percent reported being physically harassed, and 22 percent reported being physically assaulted.
• Victimization based on gender expression at school: 68 percent reported being verbally harassed, 31 percent reported being physically harassed, and 16 percent reported being physically assaulted.
• Anti-gay language at school: 91 percent heard “gay” used in a negative way, and 79 percent heard other homophobic remarks (“dyke,” “faggot,” etc.) used frequently or often.
• Lack of school intervention: Only 13 percent reported that school personnel intervened when they heard homophobic language, and only 11 percent reported similar intervention for negative remarks about gender expression.
• Lack of peer support: Half as many rural students (27 percent) reported having a gay-straight alliance compared to suburban (55 percent) and urban (53 percent) students.
• Lack of visibility: Half as many rural students (11 percent) reported having an LGBT-inclusive curriculum, compared to suburban (18 percent) and urban (20 percent) students.

Compared to suburban and urban LGBT students, those living in rural areas felt less safe at school, had less supportive administrators, had less supportive peers, and were less likely to have policies protecting sexual orientation and gender expression.

The new report is based on the data GLSEN originally presented in September, which found troubling rates of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment nationwide. The very policies that would help protect students with anti-bullying programs and education are opposed by conservatives based on “religious liberty” grounds. In states like Michigan and Tennessee, the ruling Republican majorities have even tried to pass “license to bully” bills guaranteeing a place for anti-LGBT harassment in schools.

When Susan Johnson played “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for her performing arts class, she believed she was helping students improve their tolerance of diversity. The song discusses marriage equality and mistreatment of people who are gay. But after a student complained about the song, South Lyon’s Centennial Middle School suspended her for three days, including two without pay, claiming she violated a policy requiring administrative review of all video clips before they’re played in a class. Now, she has been reinstated and her pay was restored. Superintendent William Pearson explained the decision:

I am willing to not uphold the suspension, but the violation of the district practice regarding web-based clips and our expectations for instructions previewing materials under this will remain in writing. [...]

If students believe this discipline is a form of bullying, will encourage bullying, or most importantly, causes any member of our school community to feel they do not belong, then I have sent the wrong message and must correct that. We want all students to feel they belong and that they are valued, and our policies and procedures must support this.

What remains a mystery is to what extent the content of the song played into the school’s overreaction. The ACLU is continuing its investigation “to make sure they’re not trying to censure a message of tolerance for gay people.”

When Macklemore heard about Johnson’s suspension, he responded on his blog that “this incident is just one of tens of thousands that have happened across the country where schools have exposed a latent homophobia, preventing safe space for all young people to feel confident in being themselves.”

Michigan teacher Susan Johnson was suspended for three days, two without pay, simply for playing a song about marriage equality in her class. That song, “Same Love” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, raises questions about how people are treated for being gay. Now, Macklemore has responded to her mistreatment:

I believe that Ms. Johnson getting suspended is completely out of line and unjust.  However, I think it’s important for moments like these to be exposed and for us to pay attention and respond.  This level of intolerance and fear is still very active in America, but at times is not completely visible. This incident is just one of tens of thousands that have happened across the country where schools have exposed a latent homophobia, preventing safe space for all young people to feel confident in being themselves. It’s clear that Ms. Johnson felt bullying and “gay bashing” were issues that needed to be addressed, and by doing so, was punished.

I wrote the song “Same Love,” not with the expectation that it would cure homophobia and lead to marriage equality across the US (although that’d be awesome).  It was written with the hope that it would facilitate dialogue and through those conversations understanding and empathy would emerge. This incident demonstrates how too often we are quick to silence conversations that must be had. Even if people disagree, there is far more potential for progress when people are vocal and honestly expressing their thoughts about gay rights.  When we are silent and avoid the issue, fear and hatred have a far greater life span.

It’s discouraging that a song about love and civil rights has led to a teacher getting suspended from her job.  But that’s where we are at. For those of us who get a pit in our stomach when reading a story like this, it just makes it abundantly clear there is far more work to be done.

Unfortunately, the school is standing by its action, and is finally speaking out. According to the district, teachers have to submit a completed form about any clip proposed for use in class for approval by a building administrator. In addition, there’s an expectation that teachers identify curriculum benchmarks for every clip “to ensure that instructional materials are appropriate for the course and its students.” Johnson was teaching a performing arts class, so a timely pop song about a relevant social issue for students is easily justified.

The school’s implication seems to be that teachers cannot be entrusted to exercise any creative approaches in their classes or ever incorporate student’s own interests.  It also sounds like anything broaching the subject of LGBT issues is not “appropriate,” essentially proving the very point Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were trying to make.