Gay Awareness Day at HISD School principals learn about their GLBT students by Lauren Johnson and Ann Walton Sieber

Attendance was mandatory. Not for students, for a change, but for the principals. On Wednesday, April 3, the Houston chapter of Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) sponsored a conference, "Healing the Hurt: Making School Safe for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Students," designed to train Houston Independent School District principals and assistant principals on the protection of their LGBT students on campus. All HISD principals were required to attend, along with one assistant principal from each school. The HISD administration building parking lot was filled to capacity. The lots across the street were filled to capacity. Cars were parked in fire lanes.

Surprised? Then you will probably also be surprised to learn that HISD is the largest school district ever to host such a conference. Many school districts become GLBT-aware only when forced to do so by lawsuits–often brought by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Demonstrating the commitment of HISD, school board president Laurie Bricker introduced both sections of the conference and spoke urgently of the need for HISD to become sensitive to its GLBT students.

Headlining the conference were Jon Davidson and Derek Henkle. Davidson, an attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, has been touring the country with Henkle, on whose behalf Lambda is suing a rural Nevada school district. While a high school student, Henkle was repeatedly harassed, threatened, and finally physically assaulted for being an out gay student. At no time, Henkle’s suit alleges, did anyone in the school system take action to defend him. In fact, students perceived this inaction as tacit approval, which allowed the situation to become increasingly dangerous for Henkle, who was finally forced to withdraw from not one but two high schools. As he was given no protection in the high school environment, Henkle, an honor student, was forced to get a GED.

The details of Henkle’s experience are excruciating to hear, especially for those of us who know what it was like to know we are gay while still in high school. While most of us were fortunate enough not to have to endure the kind of abuse Henkle did, many of us still remember the fear of being found out, of being ridiculed, insulted, and rejected. Would we have had more courage to be honest about ourselves if we had known that we were going to be protected by our teachers and administrators? Perhaps we would have. How many of us had the chance to find out? Nobody at my suburban Houston high school.

"I am so happy that you guys are doing this training," Henkle told the room full of assistant principals. (The principals were in the morning, the assistant principals in the afternoon.) "I want you to know that each of you in this room has the authority to make a difference in the safety of the kids at your school."

HISD’s proactive effort to educate its administrators about their responsibility to protect GLBT students is a positive step, and one that could end up protecting the district, as well as individual educators, from personal liability. Henkle’s is the first case to hold individuals, not just the district as a whole, liable for their failure to act. After summarizing Henkle’s experience and the indifference of administrators, Davidson said to his audience, "I want you to think about how you would have responded had Derek come to you. How could it have been handled differently?"

Davidson reminded administrators that what they think about homosexuality is not the issue, but rather how they would act to protect a student who was the victim of harassment.

"We’re not here to tell you how to believe or feel about homosexuality," he said, "just as we won’t tell you what to feel or believe about religion or race. What we’re talking about here is conduct."

PFLAG has done two "Healing the Hurt" conferences in the past, but only for counselors and social workers. "We got tired of talking to counselors and teachers and other people who don’t set policy," Jim Null of PFLAG said. Null approached Dr. Harriet Arvey, assistant district superintendent in charge of student support services, who agreed that the time was right to address school leaders as a group.

"By sponsoring this conference," Davidson told the principals, "HISD says to its principals that the district stands behind them taking action to stop harassment."

Was the conference just lip service? We hope not. Just hearing Henkle’s story first-hand is bound to help educate the educators on the importance of protecting GLBT students. The seriousness with which the administration presented the conference should give the administrators the message that they will be backed up if they take action to protect GLBT students.

HISD is the seventh-largest school district in the country, after New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, two Florida districts (Miami/Dade County and Broward County, where Fort Lauderdale is located), and Philadelphia. All six of those districts have nondiscrimination clauses that include protection on the basis of sexual orientation for students, and five (all but Miami/Dade) have such protection for teachers and staff. HISD does not include sexual orientation in its nondiscrimination clause. In Texas, Dallas ISD has such protection, but San Antonio and Austin do not.

No doubt a significant percentage of teachers in HISD are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Without specific job protection, they are often afraid to be out. One lesbian teacher we know is about to have a baby with her partner. She worries that the questions raised–Who is the father? Why aren’t you married or at least living with the father?–will effectively out her and possibly endanger her job.

This atmosphere of fear and secretiveness among the teachers about their sexual orientation also has profound repercussions on students. One gay teacher we know says he is afraid to silence gay slurs against his students because suspicions about his orientation might then be directed at him. Derek Henkle said gay threats like these were the beginning of the harassment that culminated in his almost being killed in his school parking lot.

Henkle reminded the room full of HISD power makers of the well-known phrase, "Let no child be left behind," from President George Bush and his secretary of education (and former HISD superintendent) Rod Paige. Henkle continued, "You need to know that 30 percent of kids like me get left behind."

HISD presented a strong and thoughtful message by hosting the "Healing the Hurt" conference. Now it is time for the school board to put their good words into action. They can do that by adding "sexual and gender orientation" to their nondiscrimination clause for both students and teachers.

The financial underwriters of the Healing the Hurt conference were Bunnies on the Bayou, Chase Bank Texas, the John S. Kellett Foundation, the Krewe of Olympus, the Pauls Foundation (Chicago), and the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Meyer Foundation (Austin)