The elimination of Boston University Academy’s Gay-Straight Alliance has the potential to harm students and lead to intolerance, according to leaders of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.
Sean Haley, the Executive Director of GLSEN, said he felt such clubs were important to maintain a comfortable learning environment for students who were homosexual.
“A central aspect of learning is that if young people are not safe, their learning ability is impaired,” Haley said.
Haley said the alliances, which are made up of both homosexual and heterosexual students, provide a safe learning environment and teach students to be tolerant of one another.
“Programs like [GSA] promote safety and respect in all schools with special attention to race and gender issues,” Haley said.
Kevin Jennings, executive director of the GLSEN in New York, said students should be commended, not condemned, for trying to promote tolerance through such a club.
“Students are trying to improve the educational climate of their school and the [Chancellor] is trying to stop them,” Jennings said. “It is one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in my 12 years [at the GLSEN].”
Boston University representatives were unavailable for comment yesterday.
In 2000, El Modena High School, a public school in Orange, CA, attempted to ban a gay, lesbian, and bisexual student group from meeting on campus. U.S. District Judge David Carter found the school district violated the Federal Equal Access Act, the internet publication “Education Week” reported on February 16, 2000.
According to a study by Seattle Public Schools in 1996, “15 percent of LGB (Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals) youth have been injured so badly in a physical attack at school that they have had to seek the services of a doctor or nurse.”
The Victim Services/Traveler’s Aid’s “Streetwork Project Study” in 1991 found that 42 percent of adolescent lesbians and 34 percent of adolescent gay males who have suffered physical attack also attempt suicide.
However, the critics of Silber’s discontinuation of GSA are not breaking new ground by voicing concerns about the safety of gay, lesbian and bisexual youth. The Massachusetts Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth founded by Governor William F. Weld in 1992, was created in response to what the commission deemed “an epidemic of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.”
The GSAs, like the one at the BU Academy, provide a forum to discuss pertinent issues and concerns and work as a support system for students according to the GSA website.
“The Third Board of Education Recommendation on the support and safety of Gay and Lesbian students encourages schools to offer school-based support groups for gay, lesbian, and heterosexual students,” the web site read.
Since its conception, the commission has expanded its powers and renewed its commitment to “combat suicide and violence affecting gay and lesbian youth,” according to their web site.
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