Joe Quigley, teacher

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Part Four
Written by Joe Quigley
(Posted 12-7-00)
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five

I began a weekly practice
of forwarding reports and studies to members of the central administration and the school board members that dealt with the importance of addressing the needs of Gay and Lesbian Students in our schools, and I would write to local newspapers about the concern.

The student who lodged the original complaint was removed from school by her father, who then had a difficult time having her enrolled in other city schools. Apparently his going on television to bad mouth a teacher known to be a good person to many principals in the city, either through having worked under them or with them on the diversity committee, was viewed as a travelling problem that could go off at their schools just as easily over some personal dislike of a teacher, principal or program. The girl herself had even asked her father in the presence of people in authority to stop his crusade. She did not expect her complaint, that in her mind was to make me look like a bad guy and so legitimize the complaint of the "rebel without a clue" and his adoring fan, would go as far as it did. It did not have its desired effect as the two other students in their own time came and apologized to me for things getting so far out of control, and other of her friends wanted very little to do with her. The lie about the Bible ban had hurt her within her group of Christian student friends, who could no longer support her lie.

By April, and after constantly being frutrated by inactivity on the part of the district in resolving the grievance, the president of the local AFT gave the ACLU the go ahead on whatever it felt needed to be done. The district, after all, had had enough time to do something, yet for what could only be seen as political considerations, and which were described as such "off the record" by a highly placed administrator, was stalling.

The ACLU wrote a letter to the district in which, rather than threatening a legal case, pointed out quite clearly that in the event a student were to be harmed, choosing then to pursue a legal case, it could be easily shown that the district had established a pattern of behavior that contributed to creating a hostile environment in which the negative treatment of Gay and Lesbian students was permissible. The removal of the poster being an indication of the school administrators' intolerance of Gay and Lesbian Students. Its being rehung a way to remedy this. This letter became the motivation to have the district's attorneys find a way to resolve the grievance while at the same time not having the administration admit any type of wrong doing.

One of the benefits of all the events surrounding the posters was that teachers were becoming aware of the inequities in the system when it came to Gay and Lesbian students. Also, the topic of things Gay and Lesbian was out of the closet and was able to be discussed without embarrassment or discomfort, not just at my school, but throughout the district. Those who were dyed in the wool religious fundamentalists were not swayed in their beliefs, but those with more open minds began to ask questions and seek answers. They also became more sensitive about things.

Thus it was that some got very offended at Prom time with an assistant principal's action when a senior girl, not wanting to go the Prom alone but not having a date, asked her sister to go with her. In order to do this, as her sister was a sophomore and not a date, the senior was required to fill out a guest request form. The purpose of the form was to have some control over who a senior or junior brought to the Prom if that person was either from a lower grade or another school. The forms were reviewed, phone numbers checked to verify that the person was who the person was claiming to be, and in most cases there was no problem. In this case the assistant principal had a problem. According to him the school had a policy banning someone from bringing someone else of the same sex to a school function. Not only did such a policy not exist, but the State Standards for Teachers specifically stated that a student could not be denied involvement in or admission to a school activity based on sex or, among other things, sexual orientation. The offense was two-fold. The younger sister was being denied admission because of her sex, and because of the apparent impression of their being a Lesbian couple. Had she been the senior's brother there would have been no problem. Although all in attendance would know they were sisters, it was the impression alone that made the assistant principal object. This did not sit well with the moderators of the senior and junior classes, but the girls' parents did not see it as much of an issue, and their younger daughter could always attend future proms. However, in the book of Prom procedures and policies the nonexistence of the "policy" has been noted and rules both from the State Department of Education and various court rulings have been inserted.

This was not the first such case that academic year. At the time of the Winter Ball, a newly instituted formal event held at the winter holiday season that could be seen as a dry run for the Prom, an openly Gay special education student was given a similar denial when he mentioned he was bringing his date. As special education students do not often mix with the rest of the population and often confide more in the special education teachers than in other teachers, this was known only to him and the special education teacher who, in spite of knowing it would have been of interest to me and could have been the evidence needed to illustrate how far administrators will go to deny equal treatment of Gay and Lesbian students even if it mean going against state policy, simply forgot to mention it. And as the student had dropped out at the semester, we were not in a position to pursue it when I heard of it at Prom time.

Other teachers with a degree of discomfort, and offering the "I hope it doesn't offend you, but ......" prequestion apology, began asking substantive questions about things Gay and Lesbian, more often than not correcting some false impression or dispelling a personal stereotype. But the grievance dragged on, and had it not been for my personality and humor, I would have been annoyingly obssessed.

Summer brought relief time to the proceedings within the district, but it afforded me time to go to the national AFT convention, join the Gay and Lesbian caucus and speak in favor of the inclusion of Gay and Lesbian History Month in those months which celebration the union encouraged. There was, however, one indication of things to come in the fall. By contract, teachers are to be told their fall schedules a few weeks before school lets out, so that if there is a problem or objection the teacher can have a conference with the principal before anything is finalized. Also, if a teacher's schedule is to be totally different from their present schedule, a conference is to be held before a schedule is issued. Instead of following the contract, the administration did not notify us of schedules until weeks after school ended for the year, and at a time that made conferences impossible.

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