Schools and pols
finally beginning to look seriously at rising levels of student
abuse
The Gay, Lesbian
and Straight Education Network plans to make certain anti-gay abuse
is addressed
By Peter
Cassels
Bay
Windows staff
As the nation marked the second anniversary
April 20 of the worst school killings in American history, it may
finally be taking steps to address the likely cause of such
tragedies: bullying.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold stormed Columbine High School near Littleton, Colo.,
scattering gunfire and setting off pipe bombs. They killed 12
classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 before committing suicide.
Sadly, it was not the first -- or last -- such incident.
The
gunmen in at least five of the major school shootings in the last
few years, including the Columbine incident and those in Moses Lake,
Wash.; Pearl, Miss.; West Paducah, Ky., and most recently, Santee,
Calif., were reported to have been targets of anti-gay harassment,
despite a lack of evidence that any actually were gay. All were
either outcasts or loners.
Incidents of students being
bullied for being gay are rampant. National surveys show that close
to 60 percent of GLBT students feel threatened at school.
Twenty-eight percent said they were physically assaulted.
Ninety-three percent reported being called ``faggot" or ``queer" by
students and a third heard such epithets from teachers.
GLBT
teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide, according to a
1990 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study. They
comprise 28 percent of high school dropouts and are five times more
likely to skip school than their straight peers, according to the
gay advocacy group Project Yes.
In 1999, the National School
Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education
Network (GLSEN) showed that 69 percent of GLBT students reported
experiencing verbal, physical or sexual harassment or physical abuse
in school because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Nearly half (two out of five) did not feel safe because they are
GLBT.
In Massachusetts, the 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Survey
prepared by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) showed that
students reporting same-gender sexual experiences were more than
four times likelier than others to have missed school because they
felt unsafe. The same study showed that gay students are three times
more likely than their non-gay peers to be threatened or injured
with a weapon. As a defense, they're also three times likelier to
carry a weapon to school.
Until recently, attention has been
focused on how guns and other weapons can be kept out of the hands
of youth to avoid such tragedies, but now at least two states are
considering legislation to outlaw the cause. Others are expected to
follow.
GLSEN is working with other organizations and
government bodies seeking to address school violence to assure that
reducing or preventing sexual orientation and gender harassment is
included in solutions to the bullying problem.
``I think any
principal in America would agree that stopping bullying is what
schools should be doing," Mary Kate ``M.K." Cullen, GLSEN's public
policy director, said in an interview. Asked why the problem has not
been addressed before now, she replied that principals are likely
overwhelmed and have had other priorities. ``It's been ignored
because people didn't see the value in stopping it," she observed.
``And now, students murdering students has placed a value on it. For
years schools have found ways of working around it. Folks are now
wringing their hands and putting their energies into achieving
measurable results. They're attempting to identify where the
bullying starts and where it can be stopped."
From GLSEN's
perspective, any debate about solutions needs to involve how to
identify where sexual orientation and gender identity harassment
starts and how to stop it.
``Massachusetts has been a leader
on adding a question about same-sex attraction to identify results
on who's missing school and why," Cullen said. GLSEN is trying to
get other states to add the same-sex attraction question to the CDC
youth risk-behavior survey, which is reissued every two years.
Forty-one states conducted the 1999 survey, and 37 had measurable
results, but only three states (Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine)
and five cities (Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego and
Seattle) included the question. ``Only Massachusetts incorporated
their results in a very public way," she reported. She added that at
least two other states are considering adding same-sex attraction to
their 2001 survey.
The advocacy group included the harassment
problem in a series of policy papers it released April 20. The
documents outlined how key provisions originally found in President
George W. Bush's education plan, ``No Child Left Behind," may
potentially hurt, rather than help, LGBT students and offered
recommendations for strengthening legislative proposals so they may
better serve such students and their parents.
GLSEN stated
that it is against school vouchers because it contends moving funds
from public institutions to private ones may translate to even less
accountability and safety for LGBT students, and faith-based
initiatives because they potentially would direct government funding
to religious programs and practices that discriminate against many
student groups, including LGBT youth. The policy papers also oppose
Internet filtering software that may prevent such youth from
accessing what GLSEN calls critical resources and information
because it may use flawed technologies or reflect the biases of
programmers.
The organization also contends that Bush's safe
schools initiatives fail to specifically address discrimination and
harassment faced by LGBT youth and other groups targeted by
hate-based violence.
``The federal government has a bully
pulpit that could be a resource for either the president or the
secretary of education to talk frankly about the impact of
bullying," Cullen observed. The ultimate strategy, she added, is to
get Congress to include sexual orientation and gender identity in
the federal hate-crimes statutes.
Besides trying to provide
protection from bullying and harassment for GLBT students in U.S.
Department of Education policies and potential federal legislation,
GLSEN is monitoring bills pending in Washington State and Colorado
that seek to address the issue.
The Washington Legislature is
considering a bullying and harassment bill that was introduced after
a yearlong committee study. The legislation originally included
sexual orientation, along with race, religion and physical
appearance, in a list of characteristics that make students
particularly vulnerable to harassment. But they have been removed.
Colorado has a similar bill pending that also does not list specific
groups. In Washington, the Legislature is not expected to pass its
bill during the current session, but the Colorado version is moving
forward, no doubt prompted by the Columbine shootings. Gay rights
groups there are not known to be doing any lobbying, Cullen
said.
``By saying simply that all bullying should stop, yet
not addressing the problem that anti-GLBT harassment is directly
part of the equation, you are silencing any level of education that
can be done about that particular issue," she stressed. Such
legislation usually covers categories of groups already protected
under anti-discrimination laws. ``When constructing anti-harassment
bills, it's very easy to cover areas like race or gender, but you
have to go out of your way to include sexual orientation let alone
gender identity and that's often left out of the debate."
She
pointed out that Oregon and Nevada lawmakers are seeking to add
sexual orientation to the list of student risk groups protected by
laws barring discrimination, which includes harassment. Legislation
in New York and Texas would cover gender identity as well. Recently,
the Texas House Education Committee unanimously moved to send its
bill to the floor for a vote.
GLSEN is working in coalition
with others to see that local, state and federal governments include
sexual orientation and gender identity in any solutions to the
school harassment problem, Cullen reported: ``Unions play a role in
preparing teachers to address bullying. We have a strong
relationship with the National Education Association, which mainly
represents those in suburban and rural schools, and the AFL-CIO's
American Federation of Teachers, which represents those in the
larger, more urban districts." GLSEN also is working with other
organizations, such as the American Psychological Association and
other GLBT advocacy groups, like the Family Pride Coalition and
P-FLAG. No matter what steps states and schools take to curb
harassment, ``there definitely needs to be a way to talk about
bullying in a way students won't feel they will be objects of
retaliation," Cullen stressed.
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