Pride School does not pass

If you are even the slightest bit different, high school can be a terrifying place. In an attempt to respond to reports that gay, lesbian and transgender students often miss school because they feel unsafe, Chicago Public Schools leaders announced last week that they recommend the creation of a school to address the needs of these students.

The data suggest there remains a lot of room for this kind of solution. According to the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, out of 6,000 gay and lesbian middle school and high school students, almost 90 percent reported being harassed at school, and about 61 percent felt unsafe.

In addition, a 2003 survey of the district shows that gay and lesbian students are three times more likely to miss school than their heterosexual peers because they feel unsafe. A new school that aims to address these issues could go a long way in assuaging these fears, but we are not completely sold.

Although we applaud the efforts, something about a completely separate school rubs us the wrong way.

There are plenty of marginalized groups – ethnic minorities, religious minorities, possibly even band kids – and we don’t think that it is practical to try to accommodate high school prejudice by giving every antagonized group its own school.

Moreover, we think one of the school district’s goals should be to teach tolerance. By relegating gay students to a separate campus, the school district is leaving the intolerant students alone with no exposure to different ideas about sexual identity. The district’s goal should be to increase awareness about the prejudices facing gay students, not to siphon them off into their own separate school.

While we think that the Chicago Public Schools are right on the money in their attempts to address the issues of gay, lesbian and transgender students, we say separation is not the solution.

Dissent

My fellow dissenters and I agree that the proposal is not a panacea to the discrimination that young gay students are subjected to. We do, however, believe that as a specific policy agenda, the proposal could alleviate this discrimination and allow students to thrive in the education they deserve. While racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry still haunt modern society, homophobia is perhaps the most socially acceptable manifestation of intolerance.

Look no further than a recent study from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network that declares that 86.2 percent of GLBT students claim to have been verbally harassed, 44.1 percent claim to have been physically harassed and 22.1 percent physically assaulted. 

While the suggestion that our school system should devote its resources toward acceptance programs in all of our public schools (rather than concentrating these resources) is ideal, the prescription naively denies the immediate reality of discrimination.

The proposal for a gay-friendly school recognizes that the education of GLBT students is compromised at this very moment. It provides an opportunity for these marginalized individuals to focus on the most important component of the school environment: learning.

Jack Killen