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Re: [xmca] Youth Saving Youth
I wanted to thank Beth for her post the other day where she said:
There have been six recent suicides of US youth who were physically
and
verbally bullied by their classmates. This bullying was in response
to
these teenager's perceived sexual orientation and/or gender
nonconformity.
There have been many types of responses to these deaths, but the most
hopeful and powerful I've seen so far is the following, just posted
by an
NYC youth chorus who has decided not to the leave protection of
children up
to adults.
Beth provided a url to a YouTube clip of the Pride Youth chorus in NYC
in response to these suicides (copied at the bottom). It is an
inspiring 4 or 5 minutes of interviews and singing.
http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject#p/f/13/F9tSmwqpWQM
As a followup, I reprint below a current AP article that offers an
analysis of aspects of antigay harassment issues (which Beth points
out also includes the problem of gender nonconformity) and some of the
heated politics that are growing around this in some representative US
school districts. It is becoming more obvious to many that the
question of cultural difference and how these differences are socially
related to can become a life and death question. The article itself
focuses on school officials re-evaluating their compromises with the
right-wing strategy of supposedly opposing "bullying" without
addressing **who** is being bullied and harassed.
- Steve
Saturday, October 9, 2010
By DAVID CRARY
AP National Writer
A spate of teen suicides linked to anti-gay harassment is prompting
school officials nationwide to rethink their efforts against bullying
- and in the process, risk entanglement in a bitter ideological debate.
The conflict: Gay-rights supporters insist that any effective anti-
bullying program must include specific components addressing
harassment of gay youth. But religious conservatives condemn that
approach as an unnecessary and manipulative tactic to sway young
people's views of homosexuality.
It's a highly emotional topic. Witness the hate mail - from the left
and right - directed at Minnesota's Anoka-Hennepin School District
while it reviews its anti-bullying strategies in the aftermath of a
gay student's suicide.
The invective is "some of the worst I've ever seen," Superintendent
Dennis Carlson said. "We may invite the Department of Justice to come
in and help us mediate this discussion between people who seem to want
to go at each other."
Carlson's district in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis is
politically diverse, and there are strong, divided views on how to
combat bullying.
"We believe the bullying policy should put the emphasis on the wrong
actions of the bullies and not the characteristics of the victims,"
said Chuck Darrell of the conservative Minnesota Family Council.
That's a wrongheaded, potentially dangerous approach, according to the
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network - which tries to improve
the school climate for gay students nationwide.
"Policies have to name the problem in order to have an impact," said
GLSEN's executive director, Eliza Byard. "Only the ones that name it
see an improvement."
According to a 2009 GLSEN survey of 7,261 students, only 18 percent
said their schools had a comprehensive program addressing anti-gay
bullying, while gay students in schools that had such programs were
less likely to be victimized and more likely to report problems to
staff.
Across the political spectrum, every group weighing in on the issue
had deplored the recent deaths - the latest in a long series of
suicides over many years by harassed gay teens, but dramatic
nonetheless because of the high toll in a short span.
The most recent and highest-profile case involved Rutgers University
freshman Tyler Clementi, 18, who killed himself by jumping off the
George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly recorded him with
another male student, then broadcast the video online.
But at least four younger teens have killed themselves since July
after being targeted by anti-gay bullying, including Justin Aaberg,
15, of Andover, Minn., who hanged himself in his room in July. His
friends told his mother he'd been a frequent target of bullies mocking
his sexual orientation.
Five other students in his Anoka-Hennepin school district have killed
themselves in the past year, and gay-rights advocates say bullying may
have played a role in two of these cases as well.
Carlson, the district superintendent, lost a teenage daughter of his
own in a car crash, and says he shares the anguish of the parents
bereaved by suicide. He acknowledges that a controversial district
policy calling for "neutrality" in classroom discussions of sexual
orientation may have created an impression among some teachers,
students and outsiders that school staff wouldn't intervene
aggressively to combat anti-gay bullying.
The district - Minnesota's largest - serves nearly 40,000 students in
13 towns. The school board adopted the neutrality policy in 2009 as a
balancing act, trying not to offend either liberal or conservative
families.
Rebecca Dearing, 17, a junior who belongs to the gay-straight alliance
at the district's Champlin Park High School, said the neutrality
policy caused teachers to shy away from halting anti-gay harassment -
sometimes leaving her gay friends feeling vulnerable to the point
where they don't come to school.
"This shouldn't be a political issue any more, when it's affecting the
lives of our students," she said. "It's a human issue that needs to be
dealt with. They can be doing more and they're not."
In August, amid the furor over the suicides, the district clarified
its anti-bullying program - saying that it was not governed by the
neutrality provision and had always been intended to encourage
vigilant, proactive adult intervention to curb anti-gay harassment.
Staffers were told failure to intervene would be punished.
Justin Aaberg's mother, Tammy Aaberg, is convinced the broader
neutrality policy has been damaging to gay students and wants it
changed. She said she heard belatedly from Justin's friends about
instances in past years where he was harassed that she was never
notified about even through staff members were aware.
Now she sees signs that the district wants to be more diligent, but
isn't fully reassured.
"Most of the teachers and principals, and maybe even now the
superintendent, they mean well - they want to intervene," she said.
"But the teachers still don't know what they can and can't do."
Nadia Boufous Phelps, the school psychologist at Anoka's Blaine High
School, is co-advisor for its gay-straight alliance - to which 27 of
the 3,000 students belong. She welcomes the attempt to clarify the
stance toward anti-gay bullying.
"In the past, the staff often would not intervene," she said. "Now the
district has come out loud and clear, if you hear "That's so gay,' if
you witness anything, you must do something."
Still, she said, "We still have a long way to go"
Carlson says his district, seven years ago, was among the first in the
state to implement a comprehensive anti-bullying program. Now he's
exasperated by the highly charged, politicized debate that has flared
since Aaberg's suicide.
"It's a terribly sensitive situation," he said. "Hurtful statements on
either side are not helpful ... and the kids are watching."
Phil Duran, staff attorney for the statewide gay rights group OutFront
Minnesota, says Carlson and his colleagues are constrained by school
board members who do not want to anger conservative voters in the
district.
"They're between a rock and a hard place," he said. "I do think they
want to do the right thing - I don't think they known what the right
thing is."
Nationally, the recent suicides have intensified calls on Congress to
pass a pending bill, the Safe Schools Improvement Act. It would
require schools receiving federal funds to implement bullying
prevention programs that specifically address anti-gay harassment.
Supporters of the act say it has bipartisan support, but the
likelihood of Democratic losses in the Nov. 2 election cloud its
prospects, and it is vehemently opposed by many conservatives.
"A lot of these anti-bullying programs are crossing the lines far
beyond bullying prevention into adult-oriented material and politics,"
said Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family. Mission
America president Linda Harvey said the act would "incorporate
mandatory pro-gay propaganda."
According to GLSEN, 10 states have anti-bullying laws along the lines
of the Safe Schools Act - requiring specific components addressing
anti-gay harassment. But gay-rights activists say enforcement and
compliance is not uniform.
For example, Dave Reynolds of the Trevor Project, which seeks to
combat teen suicides, says many California schools are not in
compliance with the state's 10-year-old law. One problem area, he
said, is California's Central Valley - the source of many calls to the
Trevor Project's suicide hot line.
Jeffree Merteuil-Clark, 17, is a junior who's active in the gay-
straight alliance at Frontier High School in Bakersfield, a Central
Valley city not far from Tehachapi. That's the town where 13-year-old
Seth Walsh, hanged himself outside his home last month after enduring
taunts from classmates about being gay. He died after nine days in a
coma.
Merteuil-Clark said the teachers who are sympathetic to bullied gay
students tend to be cautious, fearing they might antagonize Kern
County school administrators who want to "sweep the problem under the
rug."
"Growing up gay in Kern County, you have all this opposition to you,"
he said. "It does have an impact on you. When you're little, you think
the rest of the world hates you."
The debate has proved to be a minefield for the Olweus Bullying
Prevention Program, one of the largest in the nation, as it strives to
serve schools ranging from progressive to conservative.
"We have to be extremely careful," said Marlene Snyder, the Olweus
development director, describing a community-by-community approach
which enables schools to tailor the program as they see fit in regard
to anti-gay bullying.
"We've worked in all kinds of schools," Snyder said. "Some have very
much taken on the homophobic situation. Other schools won't touch it
with a 10-foot pole."
GLSEN sees a mixed picture nationwide - gay-straight alliances
continue to spread, numbering more than 4,000 nationwide, yet nine of
10 gay students in its latest survey reported suffering anti-gay
harassment,
Asked for an example of an effective program, GLSEN leader Eliza Byard
cited New York City's Respect for All Initiative. The district, which
serves 1.1 million students, makes specific mention of sexual
orientation in its anti-bullying training for teachers and its
materials for students.
"There's always more to do," said Elayna Konstan, head of the Office
of School and Youth Development. "We're always trying to do this work
better."
---
Associated Press writer Chris Williams in Minneapolis contributed to
this report.
---
Online:
GLSEN: http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/home/index.html
Minnesota Family Council: http://www.mfc.org/
On Oct 6, 2010, at 5:55 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
There have been six recent suicides of US youth who were physically
and
verbally bullied by their classmates. This bullying was in response
to
these teenager's perceived sexual orientation and/or gender
nonconformity.
There have been many types of responses to these deaths, but the most
hopeful and powerful I've seen so far is the following, just posted
by an
NYC youth chorus who has decided not to the leave protection of
children up
to adults.
(A children's novel, Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Fitzhugh,
is the
only place where I've seen this type of youth action before.)
http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject#p/f/13/F9tSmwqpWQM
The teenagers whose suicides motivate this action:
Asher Brown, 13, Cypress, Texas, Sept. 23rd 2010
Seth Walsh, 13, Tehachapi, California, Sept 19, 2010
Justin Aaberg, 15, Anoka, Minnesota, July 09, 2010
Billy Lucas, 15, Greensburg, Indiana, Sept. 09, 2010
Tyler Clementi, 18, Ridgewood, New Jersey, Sept 22, 2010
Raymond Chase, 19, Monticello, New York, Sept. 29, 2010
--
Beth Ferholt
Assistant Professor
School of Education
Brooklyn College, City University of New York
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Phone: (718) 951-5205
Fax: (718) 951-4816
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