In a meeting with representatives of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) yesterday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan pledged his support for making schools safe for LGBT students and to aggressively combat the problem of school bullying. GLSEN said in their press release that this was the first time a U.S. Education Secretary has met with LGBT advocates:
“It was moving to witness these students and teachers sharing their personal stories of pain, rejection, resilience and hope with the nation’s top education official,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard who attended the meeting.“Secretary Duncan showed great compassion for their experiences, respect for their perseverance and dedication to identifying effective responses to school climate issues. I am confident that we will see growing engagement with these issues at the Department of Education and truly positive change.” Duncan also expressed an interest in finding ways to highlight the problem of bullying and harassment in national discussions about education, and requested further data on a number of proposed interventions.
GLSEN will hold its lobby day tomorrow to ask Congress to support the Safe Schools Improvement Act, federal anti-bullying legislation. Ellen Kahn, director of HRC Foundation's Family Project, welcomed the Secretary's position as high-level confirmation of why HRC Foundation's Welcoming Schools initiative is so timely:
How refreshing is it to have a Secretary of Education who “gets it”! Arne Duncan knows that many LGBTQ youth experience harassment, isolation and discrimination in our nation’s schools. It now seems within reach to secure federal legislation that insures all students, including LGBTQ students, are guaranteed the right they deserve—to attend schools that are safe, respectful, and to achieve their full academic potential. We must remember, however, that seeds of respect and inclusion are planted very early, and students as early as first grade use the word “gay” in a negative way. Young children with same-sex parents are often marginalized--or are invisible--in their school community. Gender non-conforming children are routinely teased, and the adults who see, hear and experience these dynamics are unprepared, or unsure of how best to intervene. HRC's Welcoming Schools initiative is an LGBT-inclusive resource specifically designed for use in K-5 learning environments, and focuses on family diversity, name-calling, and gender stereotyping. Implementation of Welcoming Schools will help insure that the harassment and victimization reported by so many older LGBTQ students is significantly reduced, if not eliminated, by preparing the next generation of students to value all families, stop the anti-gay name-calling, and to appreciate the spectrum of gender expression.
