When you RSVP to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner at the opulent Mandarin Oriental hotel a few blocks from Central Park in New York City, you don鈥檛 expect the featured speaker to quote Bible verses, especially if the organization you鈥檙e supporting is trying to make U.S. public schools safer for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. It鈥檚 even more unexpected if the speaker is a gay man with degrees from Harvard and Columbia universities who used to teach history at a private school in Massachusetts.
But Kevin Jennings, the 42-year-old executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, the Manhattan-based organization being feted this May evening, hasn鈥檛 forgotten his rural and religious North Carolina roots. In fact, his vivid memories of growing up there, including being called 鈥渇aggot鈥� throughout high school, drove the longtime gay-rights activist to start GLSEN. So it鈥檚 not much of a stretch for Jennings, who is still religious, to offer the crowd some Biblical wisdom to digest along with their filet mignon and passion fruit cr猫me br没l茅es.
But first, to business. 鈥淓verybody in this room has opened their wallets and their hearts to this cause,鈥� he says as he steps up to the microphone ceded to him by actress Delta Burke. 鈥淎s we celebrate our 10th anniversary tonight, I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am.鈥� Scanning the sea of faces鈥攎any belonging to impeccably dressed bankers and sharp media types sitting at tables sponsored by corporate supporters including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and MTV Networks鈥攈e鈥檚 looking at more than $700,000 raised in one evening.
Jennings then rattles off a key statistic taken from his group鈥檚 own research: Four out of five lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or LGBT, students say they鈥檝e been physically, verbally, or sexually harassed in school because of their sexual orientation. 鈥淚鈥檝e been thinking about something we鈥檝e all heard about called 鈥榤oral values,鈥� 鈥� Jennings muses, co-opting a phrase often used by critics of his organization. 鈥淚t is morally wrong that we start the school day by making [these students] pledge allegiance to the idea of liberty and justice for all, and then teach them the rest of the school day that LGBT Americans are second-class citizens.
鈥淚 know [it鈥檚] morally wrong because I learned it in Sunday school in my Baptist church in Lewisville, North Carolina. We had to memorize 25 Bible verses a night, and I know verses like those in 1 John: 鈥楤eloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.鈥� 鈥業f a man says 鈥淚 love God鈥� and hates his brother, he is a liar.鈥� 鈥�
Jennings draws breath and speaks his next sentence slowly: 鈥淚 know what happens in our schools is morally wrong because the Bible tells me so.
鈥淣ow let鈥檚 talk about what鈥檚 right,鈥� he continues. 鈥淚t is morally right that we teach every child in our schools ... to respect all of their peers, regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, regardless of their sex, and, yes, indeed, regardless of their sexual orientation or their gender identity. These are moral values,鈥� he says, his voice rising, 鈥渢hese are American values, and Mr. Falwell and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Robertson, if you want a moral values debate, you can tell me the time and the place.鈥�
As a rhetorical flourish, Jennings鈥� challenge to these evangelical Christians packs a punch, and, predictably, his supporters erupt into applause. But Jennings, who struggled to come to terms with his sexuality as a student in the 1970s, knows that the battle is far from over. Powerful voices on the right and the quieter ones of Middle America adamantly oppose acknowledging, much less accepting, alternative lifestyles in schools. Then again, GLSEN hasn鈥檛 grown from a one-man to a 30-person organization with a $5 million annual budget by battling his opponents on sexual orientation issues.
Instead, he鈥檚 done something the civil rights movement taught him is much more effective: He鈥檚 turned students into activists.
Along with advocating for safer schools, GLSEN supports students starting gay-straight alliances, school-based clubs that foster discussion of LGBT issues. There are nearly 3,000 GSAs nationwide, up from just two 15 years ago. The group also organizes a few trademark events, including No Name-Calling Week, featuring anti-bullying activities for students in grades 5 through 8, and the Day of Silence, during which students protest harassment by refusing to speak in school.
The seeming innocuousness of these events is what concerns GLSEN鈥檚 opponents most. 鈥淯nder the rubric of 鈥榙iversity,鈥� 鈥榯olerance,鈥� 鈥榮afe schools,鈥� and AIDS education, homosexual activists are selling a pansexual agenda right under parents鈥� noses,鈥� says Robert Knight, director of the conservative Culture and Family Institute. Groups like GLSEN 鈥済ain access to public schools by initiating something with obvious appeal, such as the anti-bullying program No Name-Calling Week,鈥� Knight continues. 鈥淪uch projects are a Trojan horse for promoting homosexuality as normal and inevitable for some kids.鈥�
These beliefs, however, are becoming ingrained in the world beyond school. In the book The New Gay Teenager, Cornell University professor Ritch Savin-Williams argues that everything from corporate antidiscrimination policies to the TV show Will & Grace has had 鈥渁n incalculable impact on the ability of adolescents to understand their own emerging sexual attractions.鈥� A poll conducted for GLSEN last year found that only 13 percent of American high school students agreed with the statement 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like gay people.鈥� 鈥淪o the majority of the kids are either neutral or positive,鈥� Jennings says. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l do the right thing if you teach them.鈥�
The result is a school atmosphere far different from the one Jennings faced when he was growing up. 鈥淭he isolation that characterized this experience for my generation has disappeared,鈥� he says. At the same time, he adds, 鈥渟chool systems haven鈥檛 really changed that much. The policies aren鈥檛 there, the teachers aren鈥檛 getting trained, the curriculum hasn鈥檛 changed. So they鈥檙e more visible in a system that, by and large, is no more accepting than it was 25 years ago.鈥�
In seeking solutions to this problem, Jennings draws, in part, from his own childhood. In 1972, members of the Ku Klux Klan shot at the school bus carrying him to his first day of 3rd grade in Lewisville, North Carolina, as part of a campaign to deter families from sending their children to a newly desegregated elementary school. More than a decade earlier, four black college students in nearby Greensboro had set societal change in motion by taking seats at the all-white lunch counter of the town鈥檚 Woolworth鈥檚, sparking a wave of sit-ins across the South.
So it鈥檚 hardly surprising that Jennings鈥� work focuses on student activism, which includes holding leadership workshops for middle and high schoolers each summer. It鈥檚 mid-July, and the students are just arriving in the meeting room of a residence hall at Emory University in Atlanta, where this summer鈥檚 group of 73 students from 33 states will learn how to organize GSAs and serve as peer leaders.
Dressed in a white polo shirt, Jennings comes across as quietly serious as he chats with some students, especially compared with his younger colleagues, who, scurrying around in red GLSEN T-shirts, envelop the attendees with camp-counselor-like welcomes. While waiting for stragglers whose flights have been delayed by Hurricane Dennis, Rhys Hackford, a blond senior wearing ripped jeans, talks with her neighbors. She describes her all-girls private school in Massachusetts as 鈥渙pen and accepting.鈥� But there鈥檚 a need, she says, to constantly educate people, especially incoming freshmen. Rhys, who came out as bisexual in 8th grade, adds, 鈥淚 know how I felt going through that. I realized that I didn鈥檛 want other people to feel that way, ... so that just really became what I was about.鈥�
When his opening speech finally gets under way, Jennings touches on past civil rights victories. 鈥淥ne day, you will be talking to your child about having come to a conference on fighting something called homophobia. And they鈥檙e going to be smiling and nodding鈥濃�攈e affects a vacant, uncomprehending expression鈥斺�渂ecause all of your kids ... will be studying homophobia in history class, not hearing it in the hallways.鈥�
The students flip through the thick white binders they鈥檝e been given. By joining the leadership team, they鈥檝e agreed to advise students, register new GSAs, and lobby state representatives on student-safety issues. The binders, filled with how-to materials, reinforce the idea that GLSEN expects them to get a lot of stuff done.
The group doesn鈥檛 have the visual homogeneity you鈥檇 expect in a student leadership program. Half are students of color, straight, or transgender, and while many have the confident demeanor and preppy outfits typically associated with kids who aspire to such positions in schools, others are dressed entirely in black and survey the scene cautiously, slumped in their plastic chairs with arms folded across their chests.
Parent approval is required to attend, though coordinator Lynly Egyes notes that many adults who don鈥檛 condone GLSEN鈥檚 work do allow their children to participate. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be something like, 鈥業 can鈥檛 stop them,鈥� 鈥� she explains. Some parents just need to hear 鈥淭his looks really good on college applications鈥� before signing the permission slip.
As Jennings鈥� speech ends, the thoughtful quiet that descends on the group is broken by GLSEN鈥檚 student organizing director, Christopher Ramirez, who takes the floor to discuss the workshop鈥檚 ground rules鈥攏o illegal or sexual behavior and no visiting people in their rooms, regardless of their gender identification.
鈥淎re we going to have talent night? Yes,鈥� Ramirez says. 鈥淎re we going to have drag bingo? Yes. But we鈥檙e here to work, and there鈥檚 not a lot of time. I鈥檓 putting my love life on hold while I鈥檓 here, and so can you.鈥�
He鈥檚 not kidding about the work. The students split into groups of 10 or so and attend up to eight hours鈥� worth of seminars each day. With just a few breaks for silly songs to boost energy levels, GLSEN staff members and students from previous years serve up huge amounts of information on how to work as a team, organize events, and communicate with the media and government officials. They even discuss what color pens to use on flip charts.
After the workshops, Rhys admits that the amount of effort that goes into activism was a 鈥渃omplete shock.鈥� She adds, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e building these skill sets and learning all sorts of strategies. ... It was like, 鈥極K, right now I鈥檓 totally overwhelmed, but I know that I can make this work.鈥� 鈥�
A few months later, Jennings is sitting in his New York City office, eating a tuna sandwich and drinking spring water from a bottle. He ignores the pings signaling the arrival of new e-mails as he recalls hearing one student at the Atlanta workshop say that he鈥檇 been called names, brutally beaten, and spat upon at his Florida high school. 鈥淗e told it in this complete deadpan,鈥� Jennings says. 鈥淚t just reminded me, these young people are incredibly strong and resilient and together, but you scratch the surface, and there鈥檚 so much pain there.鈥�
The same could be said of Jennings in the 1970s and early 鈥�80s. In 7th grade gym class, a teacher caught him gazing at another boy鈥檚 legs and drew the class鈥檚 attention to it. From that point on, his fellow students felt they had carte blanche to taunt him, he writes in an essay in One Teacher in 10: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories, a 1994 anthology he edited: 鈥淲henever I volunteered to answer a question or write on the board, a slightly audible murmur from my classmates would arise. 鈥楩aggot,鈥� I would hear. I learned not to volunteer or raise my hand.鈥�
But Jennings excelled academically, becoming the first in his family to go to college. He left North Carolina for Harvard University, where he came out at age 19 and got involved in gay-rights activism. But as a high school teacher at a private school in Rhode Island in the mid-鈥�80s, he realized that North Carolina wasn鈥檛 the only place where gay people were expected to be invisible. So in 1987, he got a job at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, where he felt comfortable enough to let students know he was gay鈥攊f they asked. Otherwise, he kept his sexual orientation under wraps.
Eventually, Jennings worried that his semi- silence implied that being gay was shameful. So, after obtaining administrative permission, he outed himself in a speech to the student body during one of the school鈥檚 nonsecular chapel meetings. Although the audience was receptive, Jennings says that afterward, when he returned to his classroom, he noticed that the blackboard had been covered with graffiti. Certain the scrawlings were epithets, 鈥淚 temporarily blanked out,鈥� he recalls. 鈥淲hen my vision returned, I read what they had actually written: 鈥榃e love you, Kevin, and we鈥檙e so proud of you.鈥� Each student had signed the board.鈥�
The experience at Concord Academy emboldened Jennings, who in 1990 helped organize a volunteer group of gay and lesbian educators that, five years later, would become GLSEN. Jennings 鈥渂rings a passion to the job,鈥� says former National Education Association president Bob Chase, who鈥檚 a member of GLSEN鈥檚 board of directors. Chase, like other supporters, believes that characterizing hostility and indifference toward gay students as an educational issue makes sense. 鈥淚t was clear to me that learning is hampered when schools fail to provide a safe and nurturing environment,鈥� he explains.
The statistics back him up. According to the National Mental Health Association, 28 percent of gay students鈥攁lmost three times the national average鈥攅nd up dropping out of school. And one GLSEN study concludes that the average GPA of frequently harassed LGBT students is 10 percent lower than the average of those harassed infrequently.
Even with statistics and educational leaders supporting Jennings鈥� cause, youth sexuality is a touchy subject, and GLSEN hasn鈥檛 always stayed within the boundaries of what鈥檚 appropriate to teach students. Back in 2000, for example, while its Boston chapter was hosting an annual conference for teachers, students, and community members, one of the group鈥檚 opponents audiotaped a workshop that caused quite a stir. Presented by two state education employees and a consultant, 鈥淲hat They Didn鈥檛 Tell You About Queer Sex and Sexuality in Health Class鈥漚nswered audience questions about gay sexual practices, including an act commonly known as 鈥渇isting.鈥� 鈥淭o say that the ... workshops and presentations of this state-sponsored event for educators and children are 鈥榚very parent鈥檚 nightmare鈥� does not do them justice,鈥� observed reporters from a conservative Web site who attended the conference.
GLSEN responded by issuing a policy prohibiting explicit content at gatherings. But this past spring, again in Boston, a conservative activist discovered a pamphlet that a community group had distributed at a conference hosted by Brookline public schools. Written for gay men older than 18, the 鈥淟ittle Black Book鈥� made graphic references to sexual activities as part of explanations on reducing the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases. The pamphlets were distributed without GLSEN鈥檚 knowledge, said Sean Haley, the executive director of the Boston chapter, in a statement. He vowed to 鈥渞edouble our efforts to make sure that our material and the material brought in by other organizations is age-appropriate.鈥�
Such apologies did little to appease critics, including the Article 8 Alliance, a conservative Waltham, Massachusetts, group seeking to repeal same-sex marriage in the state. 鈥淗ow arrogant do they get?鈥� group officials asked rhetorically on their Web site, accusing the Brookline superintendent and GLSEN of 鈥渞ecruiting kids for homosexual activism.鈥�
Because GLSEN鈥檚 opponents tend to be activists themselves, this kind of publicity doesn鈥檛 exactly encourage school administrators to embrace LGBT issues. In some parts of the country, principals have chosen to ban all extracurricular clubs so that their schools don鈥檛 have to sponsor GSAs. Other administrators simply ignore the issue.
That鈥檚 the attitude Talia Stein, a former student leadership team member, dealt with for nearly four years at her suburban Chicago high school. In 2001, Stein was a freshman at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. She and a friend decided their school of 4,500 students, with a national reputation for excellence, needed a gay-straight alliance among its 50 or so clubs.
鈥淭he dynamic ... was that [being gay] wasn鈥檛 necessarily talked about negatively, unless you came out,鈥� explains Stein, now a poised 18-year-old college freshman with oval glasses and long, curly hair. They gathered student signatures, found a faculty sponsor, and submitted their proposal to the administration, which rejected it. The reason given: 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 want to create a divisive student body,鈥� Stein says.
The following year, while attending a Chicago conference on LGBT education issues, Stein discovered that students had been failing to start GSAs at Stevenson High for nearly a decade. Soon afterward, Stein received e-mails from the GLSEN national office and a lawyer from the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which works against LGBT discrimination.
鈥淭hat kind of freaked me out,鈥� she recalls. 鈥淚t was just, 鈥極h, my God, I鈥檓 15, I don鈥檛 want to have a lawyer.鈥� 鈥� The lawyer and GLSEN representatives didn鈥檛 pressure her to take action, but they talked about her options and introduced her to the federal Equal Access Act, a 1984 law that requires publicly funded schools to permit student-initiated GSAs to meet on the same basis as other student clubs. In the fall of her junior year, she asked her Lambda Legal lawyer to visit with administrators. That February, the school approved the GSA on a trial basis, and early in 2005 made it an official school club.
While the club, which draws an average of 40 students to its weekly meetings, has been in existence for just over a year, Stein says that having an officially recognized GSA helps students who once felt invisible. 鈥淓ven if people can鈥檛 gather the strength to come to the meetings, you know you have a name, you have a voice, and you have a safe space if you want it.鈥�
Fighting for the club changed her, too, she says. 鈥淚 found this cause, and everything else just kind of fell into place. I have all these organizing skills and all these public speaking and writing skills that I鈥檓 going to have for the rest of my life.鈥�
Students at schools more receptive to GSAs find such stories inspiring. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really grasp the concept of how good I have it in New York City,鈥� says Lance Sun, a junior at the Queens High School of Teaching in Bellerose, New York.
Mid-September found him and members of his school鈥檚 GSA鈥攁 busy group with 10 core members鈥攎anning a table outside the lunchroom as students signed a pledge and bought red buttons that declare, 鈥淚 am an ALLY working to end anti-LGBT bullying, harassment, & name-calling in K-12 schools.鈥� By day鈥檚 end, the club had sold all 110 of its buttons, and its members would ultimately gather 137 pledges from classmates at the 900-student school.
Principal Nigel Pugh bought a button and wore it to a district meeting later that week, sparking questions from colleagues about the campaign. Pugh says he was happy to approve the GSA when Lance proposed it last year because it aligns with the values of their institution, a magnet school for students interested in education. 鈥淚f you want to be a teacher, you鈥檙e going to be making a major impact on the lives of young people when they鈥檙e at a very impressionable and vulnerable stage, and you yourself have to be a whole person,鈥� he explains.
Of course, not even schools that formally acknowledge such groups are perfect. That same week, a teacher told Lance that she overheard a student making disparaging remarks about gay students and stopped class to discuss his comments. 鈥淚 know that words of prejudice are occasionally used here,鈥� Pugh admits. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a high school, and that鈥檚 the nature of high school.鈥�
If students picking on each other is the nature of things, then why waste time trying to change it? Pugh is surprised at the question. 鈥淚n education, you are changing the future. And if you don鈥檛 believe that, you shouldn鈥檛 be in education.鈥�
