STAFF EDIT: Wrong move, Silber

John Silber continues to amaze the Boston University community with his lack of compassion and inappropriate actions. His mandated closure of the BU Academy’s Gay-Straight Alliance is his latest and most disturbing decision since reassuming the duties of Boston University president two months ago.

Silber last week ordered BU Academy Headmaster James Tracy to shut down the school’s gay student support group, which promotes tolerance of homosexuality among Academy students and helps both gay and straight students unite to discuss issues of homosexuality in an open environment.

Silber’s actions are disturbing for several reasons.

First, his unilateral closure of the group represents an outlandish overstepping of his professional bounds. Though the Academy may have been a Silber initiative and may be a part of Silber’s larger vision for fixing education, he does not run the school’s day-to-day operations. It is iron-fisted actions like this that show his lack of professionalism in dealing with opinions opposed to his own and made him unpopular among students and faculty during his first presidential reign.

Silber not only unilaterally disbanded the club, but even went as far as to muzzle Tracy. His dictatorial style and threats of funding cuts for failure to comply with his demands border on abusive.

Silber’s reasons for eliminating the club are also unreasonable and ignorant. The club was eliminated because of its “focus on sexuality” which is “inappropriate with the age range with which we are dealing,” according to BU Spokesman Kevin Carleton. But Academy students disagree, saying the club was simply an organization to promote tolerance and help gay students feel comfortable at a time in their lives when it is particularly hard to deal with homosexuality. High school is the perfect time for a GSA — a time when social forces push certain accepted views of self-image upon teenagers while they struggle to grow and explore their developing identities.

Sex education starts during elementary school, so why should that education not include the sexual issues of a large section of the population? Schools should be places that encourage students to explore their feelings and grapple with confusion. They are places where all views and options should be presented, a place where an important fact of life should be discussed and explored.

Carleton’s contention that the Academy is a place tolerant enough not to need a GSA is also erroneous. High school administrators should always be striving to promote tolerance more and more, especially among teenagers continually learning the ways of the world. Teenagers can always be more tolerant and understanding of an idea as uncomfortable for many people as homosexuality.

Promoting tolerance of homosexuality through organizations like the Academy’s Gay Straight Alliance is an idea supported by the State of Massachusetts, to the tune of $285,725 (the total amount of state funding given to public schools to for these groups). It is an important value that should not be ignored by Silber or the Academy’s administration.

BU students should react fiercely, both to Silber’s abuse of power and his promotion of his own narrow-minded views on the entire BU community. In making such a controversial move, Silber has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the student body to act.

Spectrum in particular should support the Academy’s GSA by offering their services and support. If Silber takes the club away from BU Academy students, BU students should counter him by bringing their own version of the club to them, making their meetings more accessible to Academy students and inviting them to participate in their discussions. In the end, this issue could act as the needed catalyst for adding a sexual non-discrimination clause to BU’s admissions policy.

But all students have a larger responsibility not to let Silber off the hook so easily. His disbanding of the Academy’s GSA is an important issue deserving of the student body’s full attention, though it may not affect all students as personally as an issue like the Guest Policy. Homosexual students deserve the respect and solidarity of the rest of the student body. If Silber will not re-instate the GSA, the student body should do what it can to give gay students at BU Academy the support they deserve.