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The boys mother
is outraged about the
attack. “1 feel like no
teacher should ever
do that to anybody’s
child," she said. “If
my son would have
hit that teacher, they
would have dragged
him out by his heels.”
No state law pro
tects students from G am et Coleman
such discrimination
in Texas schools. State Rep. Garnet Coleman,
D-Houston, tried to change that during the cur
rent legislative session by authoring the Dignity for
All Students Act, which would address this type of
issue. The hill was referred to the House Commit
tee on Public Education, but chainnan Kent
Grusendorf refused to give it a hearing.
“The states leadership obviously thinks issues
such as school vouchers and textbook censorship
are more important than assuring the safety of all
students,” said Randall Ellis, Lesbian/Gay Rights
Lobby of Texas executive director. “It is outrageous
that it takes an incident such as this before people
realize the importance of protecting LGBT youth.”
Students have sought relief from harassment
under the Equal Protection Clause o f the 14th
Amendment, as well as Title IX of the Educa
tion Amendments Act of 1972. However, these
laws do not specifically protect them from dis
crimination based on sexual orientation.
“Homophobia runs rampant in Texas,” Ellis
said. “All session, we have seen lawmakers
launch attacks against the LG BT community.
The leadership of the Legislature has failed a sig
nificant portion of the Texas population, and
the consequences are frightening incidents such
as the one at Westbury High School.”
❖
fter its principal forcibly removed stickers
from students’ clothing during a silent protest
to raise awareness of anti-gay violence, the Ameri
can Civil Liberties Union demanded May 27 that
Luther Burbank High Schtxd stop censoring teens
A
who t(X )k part in the action and promise not to
punish others who do so in the future.
“We’re appalled at this school’s actions
against a group of peaceful, law-abiding stu
dents,” attorney Ken Choe said. “The principal
told these students that they were being disrup
tive, but it’s obvious who was really causing
problems at school that day.”
The school shut down the Amnesty Interna
tional Club because some of its members had led
the protest. They were participating in the Day
of Silence Project, an annual nationwide action
in which students vow not to speak in order to
illustrate the silence in which queers often suffer
discrimination and violence.
“We were really careful to make sure that
what we were doing was legal and didn’t inter
fere with school,” senior Andrea Adame said.
“All we were doing was being quiet and wearing
stickers that explained what the day was all
about, and we made sure students knew they
should speak in classes where they have to, like
Spanish class.”
Andrew Rodriguez, principal of the down
town San Antonio school, previously had
warned the club that he would not allow it to
sponsor Day of Silence activities, so several stu
dents went forward with their plans while acting
independently of the group. He spent much of
the morning April 9 confronting teens in the
hallways and cafeteria, demanding that they
remove “I support Day of Silence" stickers from
their clothing and removing them himself if
they didn’t comply immediately, at one point
even tearing one girl’s shirt. By lunchtime,
Rodriguez reportedly was entering classrooms
and interrupting instructional time to demand
that students take the stickers off their clothing.
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Jersey Supreme Court decisions throughout
the past five decades— as well as the text of the
New Jersey Constitution itself—Lambda Legal
responded May 9 to the state’s motion to dismiss
a lawsuit seeking to respect the right of same-sex
couples to marry.
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The national civil rights organi-
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5 bian couples in the historic case,
§ Lewis et al. v. Harris et al. The case,
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8 Superior Court in Mercer County.
In its response Lambda detailed
how the state’s statutory barrier to
marriage for same-sex couples vio
lates the rights to privacy and equal
protection in the New Jersey C on
stitution. Attorneys said state
statutes, such as those restricting
marriage to the union between a
man and a woman, “must comply
with the dictates of the New Jersey
Constitution, and it is the proper
role of the courts to ensure that
they do.”
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