Monday, November 10, 2008
I once called a middle-school classmate a bitch. She told the principal, and when he asked why I called her that, I told him it was because she called me a fag. He asked why this offended me and told me it was just a word. I was too young and confused to defend myself, so I was punished. Nothing happened to her.
My middle and high schools weren’t the most hateful of places, but the words “faggot,” “queer” and other negative epithets littered conversation and rarely saw consequences. This memory was evoked when I was reading that public school officials in Chicago are recommending the approval of a “gay-friendly” high school.
At first I was elated — it would have been a dream to attend a similar school in my middle- and high-school years. But this feeling was quickly followed by skepticism.
The main reason for the proposed school, called the School for Social Justice — Pride Campus, is to deter the harassment and violence toward LGBT students, which causes them to skip class and drop out at increasing rates. Eighty-six percent of students reported being verbally harassed, 44.1 percent physically harassed and 22.1 percent physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, according to a 2007 nationwide study from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. The rates for students missing class for this reason were also drastically different: about 32 percent for LGBT students and about 5 percent for heterosexual students.
The proposed school would not be exclusive to LGBT students but instead meant for any students looking for other schooling options, such as a higher quality education or another schooling environment. It would also be aimed at students who have feel they have been victims because of their sexual orientation.
The standards and curriculum for the school would be in line with other schools in the district, and the curriculum would incorporate lessons about sexual identity in history and literature classes.
It’s clear that LGBT students are suffering in their pre-college years, a time when students figure out their education futures. Transferring schools, missing class and dropping out is not an option for students who want to continue their education.
A similar school, the Harvey Milk High School in New York City, opened in 1985 and now has a 95 percent graduation rate for its students, well above the city’s average of 52 percent. This school is different from the Chicago-proposed school, in that it requires students to be at risk of dropping out because of harassment.
I’ve never lived in a large city, but from my own experience of growing up in a small town, I don’t think this proposed school would help the LGBT community.
Hate breeds hate, and to single out LGBT students would only increase the open hatred toward them. It would decrease tolerance and acceptance among the students harassing LGBT students. By removing LGBT students, it succumbs to the idea of “separate but equal,” an initiative that I thought the U.S. had already learned from. The harassing students need to be educated about tolerance and acceptance. And they need to be punished if they exhibit hateful behavior of any kind.
When I was in middle and high school, I would have loved to attend this type of “gay-friendly” school. But I’m older now, and have realized the benefit of surviving such adversity.
— — Hirschfeld is an Augusta senior in journalism.
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Comments
Hirschfeld: Could gay schools be ‘separate but equal’?
First, the author improperly equates the admission policy of the new School for Social Justice with the 'separate but equal' policy. 'Separate but equal' mandated segregation; this school allows any student to attend, regardless of race, sexual orientation, etc., with particular attention to LGBT youth.
Secondly, the author blows the effect of ONE high school in a city of nearly 3 million people way out of proportion. Even if every student attending this school were LGBT (likely not to be the case), the number of LGBT students in every other high school in Chicago would decrease by only a fraction, if at all. A mass exodus of LGBT students from every other high school in Chicago, as the author implies, would far exceed this school's capacity.
Third, the author makes mention of, and yet still misunderstands, the intention of this school. There are those students who cannot learn, much less learn to survive, in an environment in which they are continually harassed. They will have a lifetime to deal with, and learn from, harassment. The ability to survive the harassment they will inevitably face after graduating high school will come from four formative years in an accepting, learning environment. Fortunately, the author did not need this type of school. Some students do.
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