Gay Friendly High School
Gay Tolerance Movement
Like many schools around the world, schools in Chicago have serious problems with intolerance between students. One major cause of student-to-student discrimination is sexual orientation. The problem has become so severe in Chicago public schools that school officials have proposed creating a “gay-friendly” school to combat the increasing number of gay students dropping out of high school because they’re being harassed.
Josh Edelman is the executive officer in the Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools. He stated that the proposed new school is not exclusively for gay, lesbian and bisexual student, but any student who has been a victim of bullying because of their orientation. The project has been called “Pride Campus.”
All of the educational and curriculum criteria would be the same as other schools in the city, and in addition would also contain classes that focused on sexual identity in history and literature. Counseling would also be available to students who needed it, however it would be illegal to ask students what their sexual orientation is and they cannot be forced to talk about it.
A Chicago Public School survey found that gay and lesbian students are three times more likely to miss school because they do not feel safe in their surroundings on campus. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network published a study on October 8, 2008 that showed similar trends across the country. The founder of the organization, Kevin Jennings, was very pleased with the proposed Pride Campus. "If we keep doing nothing,” he says, “ we are going to keep getting these horrifying levels of harassment, greater rates of skipping, not going to college and more tragic violence like the murder of Lawrence King.”
While many support the school, opposition exists in the Chicago community as well. Some residents oppose the school for what they claim to be are religious reasons, and others feel the school is a waste of tax money when other functioning schools are available. Some commented that sending gay and lesbian students to another school would create isolation, and hinder the acceptance of the gay community by non-gay students.
California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin are the only eleven states that specifically guarantee their students protection against harassment based on their sexual orientation with state laws. According to Kevin Jennings, this is a major part of the problem in schools.
On October 22, 2008, the Chicago School Board will vote on if they should create the Pride Campus, along with seventeen other proposed schools in the district. Until then, you can expect many heated board meetings scrutinizing every angle of the idea and an overwhelming amount of news coverage on the occurrence.
