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An email to the Legal Department


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The following is an email from Joe Quigley.
Editor's note: Oklahoma City Public Schools named Bob Moore the new superintendent of schools on May 30, replacing Dr Weitzel. Mr Moore officially took over that position on June 23. Click here for OCPS press release
(Posted 7-6-03)

(7-6-03)
T. Carter
Legal Department
Oklahoma City Public Schools

Ms Carter

( First, let me point out that when it comes to emails about the topic of making the inclusion of Gay and Lesbian Students clear in policies and programs and having in services for faculty and staff about the presence of these students in our schools, the often hostile environments they encounter each day, and the need for faculty and staff to learn and exercise a little sensitivity, I send copies of them to quite a few people. It is a tactic I learned from administrators, both past and present, who have over the past few years gone public when it seemed to be to their advantage either to present themselves as poor innocents, or to act like they were the Paul Reveres of morality warning the public that those people with a Gay Agenda are at the gates.)

     This past May as a result of our meeting a suggestion was made and accepted by the then acting superintendent to revisit our nondiscrimination language and perhaps finally make it clear and inclusive. There have been changes in leadership within the past few weeks, and it is clear from the extensive documentation that you have seen, although have not read in detail, that when this happens there is a delay in any movement or an outright dropping of the topic altogether. Changes in leadership have been used in the past as a convenient excuse to do nothing. It is a repeated and provable pattern that I hope is not going to be used in this instance. It would be laughably predictable.
    Because Summer School did not begin until July 1 I had a few weeks between the ending of school and then to revisit much of the documentation going back to 1997 and including memos from quite a few administrators both past and present. One rather alarming attitude seems to come up quite often whether dealing directly with the District's own policies, or it's addressing such issues as the agreement from 2000 with the Office of Civil Rights.
     It has taken this form:
Those of us in the district who are in positions to know such things know
1) Our policies include all students
2) Gay and Lesbian Students should not be excluded from activities, full involvement in school activities and programs, nor should they be subjected to harassment, derogatory language or physical or verbal assaults because of their sexual orientation
      and
3) In accordance with the State Department of Education's Standards For the Conduct and Performance of Teachers should not be held at a disadvantage.  
    However, when it comes to making this clear to Faculty, Staff, Students and Parents, the generally used evasion has been that Federal Laws do not say we HAVE to do this (even if it is for the safety of the students and creating an atmosphere where the student can spend time learning rather in self preservation or pretending so as to enjoy what his or her straight friends take and receive for granted), and so we won't until we are told we have no choice.
This is abominable. We do not do what we know we should because no one has told us to do the obvious.
   Why do we have to wait for a federal mandate to make schools safe for Gay and Lesbian students (and in that I include our Bisexual and Transgendered students as well)?
We know that the only way to make rules effective is if they are made clear, and just having the spirit of the rule without its application is simply not enough.
      Although doing a good thing in its ruling on the Texas Sodomy Case, the Supreme Court has also given an excuse for those who are closed minded, loose with biblical interpretation or know an imagined enemy is a great way to raise money for politics or church to spew venom and pass bigotry on to younger impressionable people who may assume they are defending God and country by exercising very negative behaviors toward Gay and Lesbian people with a ready supply of them right in the same classes they attend.
     People in positions of power (oddly enough the progeny of those groups who warned about the destruction of America and the defilement of our white women when Blacks were freed) have already misspoken or outright lied about what we can all expect from the marauding hordes of suddenly freed homosexuals who will now attempt the outright and complete destruction of families, countries and religions
     We know students will be subjected to a barrage of intensely negative and rarely truthful misinformation, and will either be those who not only hear it complete with instructions as to what they can do to stop the onslaught while saving their own souls, potentially those of their peers, and America in the process, but some of our students will be the ones being talked about.
    Will we, as we have historically done, deny facts to both faculty and students, Gay or Straight, censor any positive information they might need while doing little to limit the other? 
     The Supreme Court decision will be, as it already is, the catalyst for a backlash that will be directed to one degree or another, directly or indirectly at STUDENTS in our schools. This goes without even mentioning the Southern Baptist Convention's resolution to save the homosexuals.        
    Students in their innocent fervor in attempting to do God's work may very well make schools threatening to others without really knowing what a violation this is.
   School will be beginning soon, and I would be very much surprised if the district is not going to have a Student/Parent Handbook. The time to address, rewrite and make existing policies PLAINLY INCLUSIVE is now rather than when school is open. If we can spend time adjusting the dress code, debate a cell phone policy or even bandy about the need for uniforms, certainly the safety and well being of students has some importance.
  Two words. The easiest thing to do. ADD "sexual orientation" to the applicable policies before we have to be told by a federal government. Oklahomans pride themselves on their spirit of independence, that Oklahoma Spirit. Why can't we have it in this case?
   Allow teachers to make information available. Allow the acknowledgement of Gay and Lesbian History Month as we do for other months related to groups to which our students belong. Add "sexual orientation" to applicable policies. Hold in services to make sensitivity of our GLBT Students' existence and needs equal to that of all other groups.
  The basic underpinning of the historical discrimination and prohibitions against acknowledging the existence and contributions of Gay and Lesbian People to our culture and history, the sandy foundation upon which rested the censorship of any information that would allow our Gay and Lesbian Students to become fully well balanced and positive adults is no more.
    We need to DO something now without using administrative changes as an excuse for inaction whether it is because of other pressing needs, the need to get the new people up to speed or any other of a thousand conveniences one can dream up.
    There may have been changes, but I'm still here. I have been the one constant since the first request in 1997, and I do not have to be brought up to speed.
    Please let me know when the committee you suggested and was approved in May will be meeting. The summer school day is over by 1:30 and then my afternoons are free.

Joseph Quigley

 

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