A report by The Equity Project at IU is arguing more attention needs to be paid to disparities for students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The report, which found significant steps have been made in addressing racial disparities, claims the first step to addressing LGBT disparities is to collect data reflecting the problem and reviewing federal, state and local reporting requirements, according to an IU press release.
“LGBT students remain largely outside the bounds of available data on education and schooling,” the report said according to the release, adding the existing gap in data collection “makes it impossible to fully understand the extent of the problem, much less generate and evaluate strategies for remediation.”
The Equity Project, part of the Center of Evaluation and Education Policy in the IU School of Education, released its report, “Documenting Disparities for LGBT Students,” after an extensive review of existing students to research the climate many LGBT students face in schools, according to the release.
The Equity Project seeks to provide evidence-based information about issues such as equality of education, school violence and school discipline, according to the release.
Russell J. Skiba, director of The Equity Project, said researchers were struck by the small amount of concrete data being collected.
“The failure to collect this information makes it difficult to protect LGBT students from exclusionary discipline or discriminatory harassment,” Skiba said in the release. “The absence of data also makes it impossible to test the effectiveness of policy changes intended to improve practice for LGBT youth.”
LGBT students are more likely than others to experience bullying and verbal or physical harassment according to previous research cited in the release. The American Academy of Pediatrics found in a national study that adolescents who reported same-sex attraction were 1.4 times more likely to face school expulsion than heterosexual classmates.
IU researchers argued the “School Crime Supplement,” a combination of anonymously administered federal surveys conducted by school districts, should be expanded to obtain data on students’ sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as school discipline and harassment measures that could be added to currently used anonymous federal health surveys.
The researchers argued Congress should outlaw LGBT discrimination in public school by passing the Student Non-Discrimination Act, introduced last year, according to the release. Similar legislation, such as The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, protect youth from discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, disabilities and more.
The IU report said without LGBT protection in place in federal law, LGBT students are deprived “of equal educational opportunity,” and school systems are in no way required to take more active roles in the prevention of discrimination.
Following federal inaction, 19 states and the District of Columbia have made their own efforts to prohibit bullying on a basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the release.
Given Americans’ changing perspective on LGBT relationships, the report suggests privacy concerns related to the disclosure of students’ LGBT status could be evolving. However, the report notes new research is needed to study attitudes regarding privacy and participation of LGBT students when collecting school discipline data.
“More LGBT students are coming out at school, and more studies are pointing to the challenges they face,” Stephen T. Russell, a professor of child development at the University of Texas at Austin, said in the release. “Excluding questions about students’ sexual orientation and gender identity leaves us in the dark about their well-being, so new approaches are needed.”
Carley Lanich
