Local high school students advocate for LGBT rights
Haley Swenson
Issue date: 11/7/07 Section: News/Features
One former Hume-Fogg student said, "Someone very close to me faced these specific issues. ... She was a lesbian, and classmates often called her an 'ugly dyke' and other slurs. ... Rumors were started about her, and one student ... sent out a mass e-mail talking about her and her orientation. It made it very difficult for her to accept herself, and for years she refused to acknowledge that she was gay because she associated it with such negativity."
A current student at Nashville School of the Arts says, "My assistant principal would not help me when being bullied ... multiple times."
As coalition member Sam Finder emphasized, changing the non-discrimination policy will make a principal's job much easier, when he/she receives a report of sexuality or gender-based discrimination. The policy will lay out what constitutes discrimination, and a principal will act on the complaint as though it were a complaint about racial or religious discrimination. The change will have a real practical impact on students' lives.
"If a parent calls and says, 'Why has my kid been suspended?' and the principal says,'It's our policy that you can't discriminate against a gay student. He was picking on a gay student.' So partially, it's covering for the school. It's giving them a legitimate right to punish kids who do discriminate against or bully gay, lesbian or transgender kids."
But undoubtedly, adopting protection for discrimination based on certain biases is a very important symbolic change for a school system to make as well.
At Lambda's meeting following the alleged hate crime on Vanderbilt's campus in September, Dean of Students Mark Bandas and Interim Chancellor Nick Zeppos expressed a desire to change Vanderbilt's culture to be clear homophobia and intolerance are not accepted in our community. Vanderbilt's failure to adopt gender identity and expression into its non-discrimination policy puts members of our campus in peril and inhibits their ability to take legal action when bias does hurt them, but it also makes a statement about our culture.
A non-discrimination policy will not eliminate discrimination altogether - we still certainly see racism on campus, though that's explicitly protected against in our policy - including discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression it represents a major step forward in Vanderbilt's official recognition of the various needs of members of our community, and is a first step toward transforming Vanderbilt into a truly accepting and open community.
Read more about the group at their website:
http://supportstudentsafety.com/index.html
A current student at Nashville School of the Arts says, "My assistant principal would not help me when being bullied ... multiple times."
As coalition member Sam Finder emphasized, changing the non-discrimination policy will make a principal's job much easier, when he/she receives a report of sexuality or gender-based discrimination. The policy will lay out what constitutes discrimination, and a principal will act on the complaint as though it were a complaint about racial or religious discrimination. The change will have a real practical impact on students' lives.
"If a parent calls and says, 'Why has my kid been suspended?' and the principal says,'It's our policy that you can't discriminate against a gay student. He was picking on a gay student.' So partially, it's covering for the school. It's giving them a legitimate right to punish kids who do discriminate against or bully gay, lesbian or transgender kids."
But undoubtedly, adopting protection for discrimination based on certain biases is a very important symbolic change for a school system to make as well.
At Lambda's meeting following the alleged hate crime on Vanderbilt's campus in September, Dean of Students Mark Bandas and Interim Chancellor Nick Zeppos expressed a desire to change Vanderbilt's culture to be clear homophobia and intolerance are not accepted in our community. Vanderbilt's failure to adopt gender identity and expression into its non-discrimination policy puts members of our campus in peril and inhibits their ability to take legal action when bias does hurt them, but it also makes a statement about our culture.
A non-discrimination policy will not eliminate discrimination altogether - we still certainly see racism on campus, though that's explicitly protected against in our policy - including discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression it represents a major step forward in Vanderbilt's official recognition of the various needs of members of our community, and is a first step toward transforming Vanderbilt into a truly accepting and open community.
Read more about the group at their website:
http://supportstudentsafety.com/index.html
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