Some Gay History items had been removed from the push cart I had been given instead of the classroom I had the previous year when I refused to remove my Gay History Month display. They figured the best way to remove the possibility of my having a display in my classroom was to have my schedule having me roaming (that is the nice term, the real one being “running”) to various rooms so there was no room in which to have one.
My room was given to a new teacher in the building who had no idea of her quiet role in things. They were not above using a new teacher. To get through the between class hallway crowds to my next classroom, I had attached a bike horn to the pushcart I had to use to get books, papers, my required laptop, etc. From one room to the others and one of those flags attached to bikes so they can be seen in traffic to which I affixed a Rainbow Flag. Over one weekend the pole and flag were removed from the locked teachers’ room and, although the assistant principal was willing to conduct an investigation, in light of his past comments and the fact he is the last person to leave the building on Fridays, I did not trust him to investigate anything and I let that be known. The assistant principal laid possible blame on students, they used everyone.
A subsequent discussion as to whether or not there really was a true concern for Gay students and this was not a political tool led to the principal’s wishing there was some sort of survey and that gave me the opening to suggest that, rather than take the time to design a student safety survey, we use the one GLSTEN had been using in high schools for years. I forwarded him a copy of the survey designed under Governor Weld of Massachusetts when he began investigating the conditions faced by Gay students in Massachusetts public schools which resulted in state laws there that guaranteed equal protection and treatment of Gay students.
He was concerned about limiting it to just things related to Gay students and suggested a broader survey of intolerance in general. He thought such an idea should be brought up to the Faculty Advisory Committee, so after our meeting I immediately drafted a letter to all Faculty Advisory Committee members explaining my conversation with the Principal and the purpose, neutral nature, and importance of such a survey and included a copy of the suggested survey and some supporting evidence of its need in envelopes addressed to each member, and upon leaving for the day put one in each member’s mailboxes for their consideration.
Totally unaware of the maelstrom that was raging, I went about my regular duties until that Wednesday morning when, as I entered the office to sign in, the principal shouted that I was there, and swiftly, he, an Assistant Principal, and the Union Building Representative whisked me into his office closing the door. The principal was a little hot under the collar and asked me if I knew what his previous evening had been like.
It seemed that one of the members of the Faculty Advisory Committee had read the packet from the Friday before, and had then gone to her pastor at a nearby church with it, who in turn spoke to his congregation and other pastors about the course on homosexuality being taught at the school and the survey that had been taken by the students that was sympathetic toward Gay people. There apparently had been prayer meetings over the last few nights for the redemption of the school, and calls to the school office to discontinue the course and fire the teacher who taught it. The school secretaries had no idea what was going on as they fielded phone calls, as no such course, survey, or teacher existed. But the calls were many and the anger vehement.
The evening before I was whisked into the Principal’s office, a group of ministers had shown up at the Principal’s home to speak with him trying to bring him back to Jesus, and he was mad at me because of this. I could only point out to him that the person at whom he should be directing his anger was the Faculty Advisory Committee member who brought this to his or her pastor before it was dealt with by the committee, and who misrepresented it as a done deal, thereby causing the furor. I was within my rights as a teacher to bring any topic to the attention of the Faculty Advisory Committee, but no members of the committee should take it upon themselves to bring it to the public before discussion.
It was a fine example of the very same attitude the Principal had exhibited in regard to the History Month poster, overreaction based on little knowledge and understanding with no room for hearing anything from those unlike himself. Here were these people, with no investigation, demanding certain things be ended based solely on the possible connection with things Gay, and doing so in very uninformed public displays.
Toward the end of that day, I was called again to the office. This time the Principal was a little more subdued. He had just spoken with one of the angry pastors and had filled him in on the way things really were. The pastor had apologized for his overreaction, being a little embarrassed that he and others went off without investigation. The pastor was going to contact all those whom he had previously contacted to explain the mistake, and the Faculty Advisory Committee member had agreed to call all the people she had contacted and explain her misrepresentation. The principal, however, did not feel a formal reprimand for her damaging conduct was necessary in light of her agreement to make those calls.
At the meeting the principal brought up my yet unresolved grievance concerning my reprimand for not removing the Gay History Month display, and his hope that we could resolve it all then, as he slid some papers across his desk to me.
The papers were a proposed resolution to the grievance. The Union had informed me that no resolution to the grievance would be acceptable if everything negative was not removed from my file, but these papers did not state this would be done. They did state that I was to accept two conditions if I wanted the grievance settled in my favor.
First I was to agree to stick to the curriculum, which I had always done and which, therefore, being required of all teachers would not be a stumbling block for me. Second, I would have to agree to adhere to the provision in the faculty handbook about the hanging of posters. As this handbook provision dealt only with posters to be hung in the halls to advertise events, and as I had no reason to advertise any event, it too was not a stumbling block.
However, rather than sign the offer, I took the papers home for further consideration, and, suspecting that this might not be the language to which the Union agreed, I called the Union President, and found this was the acceptable language, a previous draft having been returned to the District’s legal department as totally unacceptable. Also, the Union had required that the Principal send a memo to all teachers in general terms reminding them to stay on curriculum and to follow the handbook.
And so, on September 20, 2000 the reprimand that had been placed in my file the previous October was rendered null and void, and anything negative related to the poster was expunged.
I was also given a classroom, but the games did not end.
The grievance had centered on the Gay History Month bulletin board posting but, while signing the grievance resolution after consultation with the Union President, I was handed a memo regarding bulletin boards dated September 14, six days before I had signed any grievance resolutions papers and was addressed to all faculty and staff. Although the memo referred to the Faculty Handbook section on the “Posting of Bills”, it had an additional paragraph that was to be considered added to the handbook.
“Anyone wishing to post or display any promotional materials, advertisements, meeting announcements, motivational sayings, signs or posters, or informational signs and posters shall request permission from the principal prior to displaying such material. The principal will only consider approval of those materials which relate to instruction, curriculum, the course syllabus, or extra-curricular or co-curricular activities, and those materials which generally promote school activities or relate to the courses being taught.”
This was a transparent ruse for eliminating any Gay related posters, especially as I was the only one on the faculty and staff in receipt of the memo that I and others had not received on or after September 14, 2000. It was dated so as to appear to have already been released to all faculty and staff to make it appear that I was aware of it already when I signed the resolution. This addition came as a surprise to the Union President and its timing unacceptable, but my signature was on the resolution papers.
In the spirit of the resolution and this newly created policy on the hanging of posters, toward the last few days of September in anticipation of Gay History Month, I wrote a letter to the principal requesting permission to hang posters related to the topic. His reply was, as expected, a refusal to allow it couched in educational babble about preferring more than a “one-dimensional” approach to which posters were by nature limited, and the fear that information without education would result in reactionary behavior as there was no forum for give and take. He did suggest that I work with my department to see if they would like to come up with an educational approach that he and the Dean of Instruction could help undertake. After all, we did want to be inclusive, not exclusive.
In the meantime, if I knew of any students who needed counseling, I was to refer them to our crisis counselor.
I immediately wrote a letter to the principal pointing out that it was an insult to Gay students to imply that their only need was for counseling from a crisis counselor, and how dismissive of them that was, while every effort was being made to prevent them from getting positive information that did not imply that they and those like them were deviants or troubled. They could go to counseling; they just couldn’t have Gay History Month mentioned and all the positive results that that could bring.
Within days I was, once again, summoned to the Principal’s office. Apparently, a parent had called to complain about the Gay History Month display in my classroom. It was disturbing to her daughter, and to the Principal’s way of thinking might be in violation of the spirit of the memo on bulletin boards which could begin the process for dismissal since I chose to violate the Grievance Resolution. He told me of the parent’s concern that I was “promoting the Homosexual Agenda”, and he agreed with her that school was not the place for that. Endeavoring to be honest and educational, I asked him what “promoting” meant, and if it was also promoting if it was what the majority was pushing, such as “prayer around the pole”, or the many other religion-based activities we had on campus. Was it simply informing when the majority did it and only promoting if done by the minority?
I challenged him to point out one non-heterosexual thing we did at school that would make a Gay student feel that he or she was not just ever so lucky to be a guest on everyone else’s campus. Should we wait for them to drop out or die before we cared, and then wouldn’t we be relieved if and when they were not our problem anymore?
I did not have a display in my room. He had accepted the parent’s complaint and commiserated with her without verifying that there was a basis for it.
The next day, realizing I was just as much in trouble for not having a display as I would be for having one, I put up a very small one. And, because it was a book display and not a poster, I did not think I would have to get the Principal’s permission, nor that it violated the fictitious all-staff memo the rest of the faculty had yet to see.
The Assistant Principal, who was to observe me again that year, wanted an informal chat. He had been apprised by the Principal of a parent’s complaint about my Gay promotional display. He was still talking about the previous week’s complaint of a nonexistent display since his description of what it consisted of was the same as what the principal had described the week before. He was not aware of the real display which consisted of books with short stories written for, by and about Gay and Lesbian teens, historical documents, books on the Holocaust that centered on Homosexuals in the concentration camps of World War II, books by and about African-American Gays and Lesbians, three reference books that answered not only questions for Gay Teens, but their straight friends as well, and a book on Two-Spirited Native-Americans.
This particular Assistant Principal had grown some since the previous year’s events and having recently received his law degree was a little more open to discuss legalities. He was familiar with the 1984 case against the Oklahoma state ban on teachers supplying positive information about Gays and Lesbians, and had to admit that “promoting the Homosexual Life-style” was a hollow charge at best. His main concern was that whereas I, as a teacher, was on campus because I chose to be there, the students were there by law and had no choice, so they should not be made to feel uncomfortable in a classroom. He was, obviously, concerned for the Straight students.
I smiled and told him that had been my point all along.
Gay students had to attend school every day by law, and we didn’t have one thing there for them. We even removed posters they might get to see for only one month a year while there was a multitude of heterosexual activities all year. People tried to ban books that may be the only positive thing we had for Gay students on an exaggeratedly heterosexual campus. I asked if he knew at what point these kids began to count.
I honestly admitted that there was a display, now, but it was not the one he had been referring to or describing. He went to my room, saw that the book display was at the back of the room, and, as there were two doors to the room, no one was forced to go near it. He saw that by sitting in any desk in the room, students could not see the display unless they turned totally in their seats. And, finally, he checked out the contents of the books and saw that they were educational and of no threat to anyone. They did not contain any of the expected mandatory dirty pictures that Gay people were supposed to automatically rely on. He decided on delaying my evaluation until after October so he would not have to contend with the book display in the room, but he later decided he could not treat me any differently than any other teacher, and so he would not be able to delay my evaluation after all. He would, however, overlook the books.
So in that one week in September 2000, I had fun with censorship, theft, angry pastors acting on assumption, avoiding a book banning attempt, small as it was, multiple false charges of grooming, called recruitment in those days.
And there were still eleven more years to go.
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