Schools must confront sticky gay student issues

For beleaguered school officials, summer brings a welcome break in the escalating culture war over homosexuality in public schools. In the school year that just ended, conflicts over sexual orientation in the curriculum, student clubs or speech codes broke out in record numbers across the nation. And next year promises more of the same.

If your school hasn’t had this fight yet, it will. That’s why it makes sense to head off the controversy by confronting these issues before a lawsuit is filed. As constitutional attorney Oliver Thomas puts it, the time to buy the fire truck is before the fire.

A good place to start would be to address the growing tension between claims of freedom of speech and religion on one side vs. concerns about harassment of gay and lesbian students on the other.

The clash between “freedom” and “safety” deepened in April when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Poway, Calif., school was justified in barring a high school student from wearing a T-shirt that said, “Homosexuality is Shameful” on one side and “Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned” on the other.

In a 2-1 decision, the court held that wearing the shirt interfered with the rights of others, specifically the rights of gay and lesbian students to an education free from harassment or intimidation.

Previous courts have looked at whether school officials could reasonably forecast that the student expression would cause “substantial disruption,” a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1969 decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. By focusing instead on whether the expression interfered with the “rights of others” (language also found in Tinker), the 9th Circuit has made it easier for school officials in its jurisdiction to regulate student religious or political speech.

Many conservative Christians were not pleased. A week after the decision, 13 Christian students were suspended from a Sacramento-area school for wearing T-shirts declaring: “Homosexuality is sin. Jesus can set you free.” During the same month, other schools in the region were also sending kids home who refused to remove shirts with similar messages.

The T-shirt rebellion is part of a growing nationwide response by religious conservatives to the “Day of Silence,” an event held at several thousand public schools each spring. The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), sponsors of the event, describe the day (during which students choose not to speak, but hand out cards) as an opportunity to call attention to the bullying and harassment of gay and lesbian students.

In recent years, the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal coalition, has promoted what it calls a “Day of Truth” on the day after the “Day of Silence.” Students wear T-shirts with religious messages and hand out cards with the “truth” about homosexuality.

Dueling “days” and contentious lawsuits aren’t in anyone’s best interest. It’s time for people on all sides to move beyond the rainbow flags and T-shirt slogans – and find solutions that serve the common good.

Conservative Christians might start by acknowledging that many gay, lesbian and transgender students in public schools are frequently bullied and harassed. A recent survey by GLSEN showed that 80 percent of these students report verbal harassment and 42 percent report physical harassment.

At the same time, gay-rights proponents should defend the free-speech rights of religious conservatives in public schools. That doesn’t mean anything goes. But Christian students should have the freedom to express their convictions about homosexuality or other issues in class discussions, religious clubs and elsewhere.

For everyone tired of the fight, here’s essential summer reading: “Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First Amendment framework for finding common ground.” Recently published by the First Amendment Center, the guide doesn’t attempt to give all the answers. But the process recommended in the guide has been endorsed by two groups on either side of this debate: the Christian Educators Association International and GLSEN.

A safe school is free of bullying and harassment. And a free school is safe for student speech, even about issues that deeply divide us.

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22209. E-mail: [email protected].