The Magnificent Seven

With the turn of a decade, century, and millennium having occured simultaneously, it was perhaps inevitable that pundits turned to making "best of" lists. But for those working to end anti-gay bias in K-12 schools, the end of the Nineties did indeed give important reason to reflect upon the events of the decade and understand how it is that a movement, which was not even on the radar screen ten years ago, is now a growing force in both the LGBT and education communities.

The difference between 1990 and 2000 is vast: in 1990 there were only two high school Gay-Straight Alliances in the entire nation; only one state, Wisconsin, protected students from discrimination based on sexual orientation; the LGBT civil rights movement avoided youth issues almost entirely for fear of being accused of "recruiting"; and the education community was in near-complete denial on the existence of LGBT students at all. Today there are Gay-Straight Alliances in hundreds of high schools, laws protect LGBT students’ rights in four states and teachers’ rights in at least eleven, and both the LGBT and education communities have made meaningful strides towards making the issue of anti-gay bias in schools an important priority across the board. How did this happen? Certainly not by accident; these changes are the result of the hard work of thousands of activists.

Here are some of the major events and accomplishments that have propelled an entire movement forward. While we recognize that any such list, by its very nature, leaves out worthy achievements that take place outside of the limelight, it is important that we think about these movement-defining events and draw inspiration from them for the important work remaining to be done. For by continuing in the tradition established by these seven landmarks, activists of the new millennium will be able to look back one day and say there is no longer a need for such a list – because anti-gay bias in our schools will itself finally be relegated to the dustbin of history.

The "Massachusetts Miracle" of 1993

Thanks to the unwavering support of Republican Governor William Weld and his Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, Massachusetts activists created the foundation for the "Safe Schools" movement of the Nineties. They successfully added the category of "sexual orientation" to the state’s education code. They fought for the institution of teacher training through the state Department of Education. They lobbied the State Board of Education’s to recommend that each public high school have a Gay-Straight Alliance. And they secured the appropriation of state funds to support GSA’s formation. This "blueprint" has inspired activists around the country to initiate similar legislative, policy, and programmatic efforts in their states and communities.

The Nabozny v. Podlesny decision of 1996

When Jamie Nabozny sued his Ashland, Wisconsin school district for failure to protect him from orientation-based harassment, he set into motion a series of events that would end in a settlement that many consider to be the Brown v. the Board of Education of the movement to create safe and affirming schools for LGBT students. Prosecuted by Lambda Legal Defense, the Nabozny case led to the first-ever federal ruling that schools could be held liable for failing to protect LGBT students. With its whopping $900,000 settlement, the case served as a wake-up call to school boards everywhere that there could be real – or, in school board speak, fiscal – consequences for districts who refuse to do the right thing by their LGBT students.

The Utah GSA battle of 1996

The Gay-Straight Alliance movement gained national recognition thanks to students at Salt Lake City’s East High, who found themselves in the center of a political firestorm after they started a GSA in late 1995. As told movingly in the documentary Out of the Past, the battle over the East High GSA mobilized thousands of young people in Utah, who faced a state legislature willing to ban all non-curricular clubs rather than allowing the East High GSA to meet. Through their own intemperate actions, Utah legislators helped give tremendous publicity and impetus to a student-led movement which – far from being squelched – has now spread to hundreds of high schools across the nation.

It’s Elementary – 1997

If schools were slow to recognize the need to address LGBT issues in high schools, they were in total denial about the need to do so with younger children until filmmakers Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen came along. The two women made a landmark documentary that showed how elementary school teachers could address LGBT issues in their classrooms with (gasp!) real live footage of people teaching! Parents and educators welcomed the film – which aired on PBS affiliates around the country last year – for its insight and practical advice, while right-wing ideologues attacked it as the work of the Devil itself. Thanks to It’s Elementary, the need for elementary schools to address LGBT issues was "in the closet" no more.

Wagner v. Fayetteville – 1998

This landmark agreement between the federal government and the Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas established a second critical avenue for LGBT students to seek legal redress for discrimination and harassment. The agreement remedied a sex discrimination complaint brought by William Wagner, who’s school district had failed to protect him from years of harassment. It established that same-sex, student-on-student sexual harassment could be considered a violation of the Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex discrimination and sexual harassment.

The Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act – 1999

Thanks to a five-year battle led by state Representative Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), California became the fourth state to ban orientation-based discrimination and the first to ban gender identity-based discrimination in its schools in October 1999. By signing the "Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act" into law, Governor Gray Davis quadrupled the number of students protected from sexual orientation discrimination in America’s schools. (California’s eight million-plus students represent a population over four times that of the combined total of Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Connecticut – the three other states which offer such protections.) And perhaps more importantly, when California talks, America listens: GLSEN’s already identified a record number of states proposing similar legislation next session.

"Just the Facts" – 1999

When right-wing extremists began trying to bring the notions of "reparative therapy" and "transformational ministry" (which seek to "cure" LGBT students) into our schools in late 1998, they didn’t expect opposition from the entire mainstream mental health and education establishment. But that’s what they got when, in November 1999, the publication Just the Facts was sent to each superintendent in the country, endorsed by ten mainstream education and mental health groups, including ones as disparate as the American Association of School Administrators, the American School Health Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Just the Facts marked the first time that the "establishment" had taken a stand on behalf of LGBT students, sending a powerful message to the nation: good schools change the conditions that cause pain for LGBT students – they don’t try to change the students themselves.