Joe Quigley, teacher

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		Joe Quigley, teacher xPart Onexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Part One
Written by Joe Quigley
(Posted 12-4-00)
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five

In March of 1997
I wrote a simple request to the Staff Development Department of the Oklahoma City Public Schools about offering inservices to faculty and staff about the existence of Gay and Lesbian Students in our schools and the conditions they face.

A student who had graduated the previous spring from the school at which I taught had been killed in what at first glance would be assumed a rather freak accident, but which appeared to another teacher as a potential suicide. There were circumstances that made it less than clear cut, and this teacher was concerned that this could have been prevented. There was an underlying sexual orientation facet to the whole thing, and as 'the openly Gay teacher' on campus I seemed to be the best one to approach.

The reading I did on teen suicide statistics led me to the book Death by Denial by Remafedi which in turn motivated me to make the simple request.

Being the Buckle of the Bible Belt, a negative response was to be expected, but I assumed it would be based on school policy and state law, but instead the idea was termed a good one, but one which "local norms" would not allow. But as local norms are usually determined by politicians, majority churches and in our case the local newspaper, school policies and programs must be neutral in nature to protect all students and address their needs, especially those who fit into any number of minorities.

What followed was a series of letters requesting more than a dismissive rejection and a meeting to present the facts and figures that would allow the district to make a more informed decision. Instead of going through the motions and giving the appearance of being interested and then tabling the request for further consideration which would have been a more tactful way of handling things, the district was adamant in its refusal to pay any attention whatsoever.

I sent letters to the school board and superintendent, but the answers were usually in the vein that the district frowned on any intolerance and that it already had workshops that included Gay and Lesbian Students. However, when pressed to list these workshops or specific policies, it was clear any workshops even remotely related to Gay and Lesbian students left their inclusion up to the attitudes of the individual teachers while other categories of students were specifically mentioned.

In the summer of 1997 I went before the school board, during that part of their meeting at which they allowed the public three minutes each for comments, and presented them with studies and reports to show the need for the workshops I had requested. These were the same reports I presented to the assistant superintendent when earlier he had agreed to a meeting when the local American Federation Of Teachers union president pointed out that this was not a political issue but a student one.

Finally, that fall, a diversity committee was convened, but instead of staying with the agreed upon make up of three members chosen by the union and three by administration, the administration chose seven people who, as it would turn out later, were neither open minded nor willing to discuss the stated inclusion of Gay and Lesbian students in district diversity policies and programs.

I made another appearance before the school board and the minutes of that meeting were very precise in summarizing what I said in favor of Gay and Lesbian students and the need to pay attention to their existence, and seemed to show a grasp of the matter.

In September the diversity committee met for the first time with only three members present along with the chair. The material covered was centered on a general treatment of Diversity with emphasis, including an Oprah Winfrey video, being on ethnic and racial diverstity. These were presented as legitimate concerns and the topics to be considered when rewriting the district's diversity policy.

After the chair had spoken for fifteen minutes, making only one reference to Gay and Lesbian people as "those who have made alternative life-style choices", I asked about the active inclusion of Gay and Lesbian Students in any policy to be formulated. The chair loudly condemned the intrusion of the "Gay Agenda" and stated in strong terms that he would not let this (I imagine the diversity policy or perhaps the committee) become a "Gay Issue".

As the chair made it clear that all other groups were concerns, while these students were an "issue", there was no assurance that Gay and Lesbian student needs would be a topic to be seriously considered. This was borne out in the two subsequent meetings.

In the next meeting, a guest speaker from what was then the National Council of Christians and Jews was asked to chair the meeting while the actual chair excused himself to see to some other "important" work, and left the room. The discussion was again very general until one of the people present for the first time pulled out a packet of reports and studies I had sent to all members when the committee was first formed, a packet similar to the one I had given the school board, demanding an explanation, and in accusatory terms and tone stating that if this was all about Gay and Lesbian things she wanted no part of the committee.

My attempts to explain this as information to aid in the committee's consideration and discussion were interrupted constantly by this member's recitation of the buzz words and cliched phrases that to a thinking person were evidence of the importance of the information in the packets and the need for serious discussion with an open mind.

The results of the studies and research conducted on the national level, not just in the United States, but Canada as well, along with studies and reports from other states and school districts were discounted by one member who pointed out that these did not agree with what she had read in "The Weekly Reader" and were, therefore, suspect--especially those parts dealing with minority Gay and Lesbian Youth who to her thinking did not really exist.

The most vocal member said that she tolerated no prejudice or bigotry in her class before launching into a string of stereotype-based judgements and cliche-based pronouncements which ended when I pointed out that I was Gay and had no idea where she got her information. Rather than stop completely, after I explained that these kids were an invisible minority in our schools, she did state, in what she thought of as open mindedness, that "they should stay that way."

After asking a series of questions for which no time was given for an answer, the meeting ended with the acting Chair advising me that, although what I sought was important, I had to have the maturity to accept compromise for now. That compromise consisted in getting nothing, but staying with the status quo.

The third of these meetings was where the committee imploded, an event that I felt was not entirely unorchestrated.

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