GLSEN Leader: MN District's Gag Policy Has "Chilling Effect" On LGBT Students

The country's leading safe schools organization on Friday criticized a "neutrality" policy at Minnesota's largest school district that prevents faculty from addressing LGBT issues with students.

Policies like the "neutrality" policy at the Anoka-Hennepin School District "have a chilling effect on LGBT students," said Dr. Eliza Byard, Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network in an interview with Change.org.

"Research has shown that teachers in states that have anti-LGBT policies are less likely to respond to the harassment of LGBT students, and students are more likely to report hearing negative remarks," Byard said.

Controversy over the Minnesota district's rule instructing teachers and staff to take a "neutral" stance on matters of sexuality came to a head last week, when a federal lawsuit was filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Faegre & Benson, LLP.

The lawsuit alleges that LGBT students, and students perceived as LGBT, were subjected to anti-LGBT slurs on a daily basis and were physically threatened or attacked by peers. While many of these abuses occurred in front of teachers or were reported to school officials, school personnel almost always took insufficient action to stop the abuse.

"The policy sends the message that who you are is not okay," Mary Bauer, Legal Director for the SPLC, told reporters.

"There is something seriously wrong in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, and district officials know it,” added NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell, Esq. “In school and after school, kids who are perceived as gay are harassed mercilessly until they drop out, melt down, or lash back. This epidemic of harassment—unlike anything we’ve seen in neighboring districts—is plainly fueled by the district’s shameful and illegal policy singling out LGBT people and LGBT people alone for total exclusion from acknowledgement within the classroom.”