Fighting Back Against School-wide Homophobia

It's not unusual (although it is still tragic) to hear about LGBT students harassed by their peers in schools.  But what about LGBT students harassed by their teachers?

Yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that they had reach a settlement with the Vallejo City Unified School District in California, after a lesbian student, Rochelle Hamilton, was taunted and harassed by her teachers.  School administrators even made her attend special counseling to discourage her from being a lesbian.

I'm sorry, but that's essentially child abuse.  Here's a quote from Hamilton:

All I ever wanted was to be able to go to school and just be myself. But I couldn’t do that when the people I was supposed to be learning from were judging me and telling me something was wrong with me. How was I supposed to learn when I was constantly scared?

Exactly.  This year has already seen multiple suicides by children as young as 11, who were taunted and teased at their schools because they were perceived to be LGBT.  In Rochelle Hamilton's case, school administrators not only failed to provide protection and safety for her in the classroom, they were actively participating in targeting her for her sexual orientation.  For Hamilton, there's at least a silver lining of this lawsuit which has shed light on the malpractice of school administrators in the Vallejo School District.  But hundreds of other kids aren't as lucky.

Here's a list of some of the other abuses faced by Hamilton at her school, direct from the ACLU:

• A teacher approached Hamilton while she was hugging her girlfriend and said, “This is ungodly, and you’re going to hell. This is a sin.”
• Another teacher said, “What’s wrong with you? What are you, a man or a woman?”
• Other school staff made repeated harassing comments to Hamilton in front of her classmates, including saying, “it’s not right to be this way.”
• Hamilton was also on several occasions denied access to the girls’ locker room.

I'm half-surprised that school administrators didn't ask Hamilton to drink out of a separate water fountain.  Elizabeth Gill, an attorney who worked on Hamilton's case, said that "If a school district ignores anti-gay bias in schools, it is plainly violating both state and federal law. These laws are designed, in part, to ensure that all students are able to learn and thrive free from bias. When it’s left unchecked, harassment can take a serious toll on students."

And I keep going back to Hamilton's own question, posed at the end of her quote: "How was I supposed to learn when I was constantly scared?"  Schools have to be safe places for all students - straight or LGBT - or else they become breeding grounds for taunting, teasing, harassment, and violence.