The single most important step Congress could take to improve the lives of LGBT students
For those who work each and every day to secure basic fairness and equality under the law for LGBT Americans, the pace of positive momentum over the past several years has been dizzying. Particularly in the area of relationship recognition and the freedom to marry, forward movement – from state-level wins to public pronouncements of support from prominent elected leaders, including President Obama – occurs on a nearly daily basis.
Given that, it can be very difficult to understand how there are still only nine states (in addition to the District of Columbia) that have extended the freedom to marry to committed and loving same-sex couples. Or that only 16 states affirmatively protect LGBT Americans from workplace discrimination. Or that there still is no federal law that explicitly protects LGBT students from discrimination and harassment in our nation’s public schools.
On Thursday, Representatives Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) re-introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act, vitally important legislation that is modeled on Title IX that would create a comprehensive prohibition against discrimination of LGBT students in our nation’s public schools. Joining Representatives Polis and Ros-Lehtinen on a press briefing to announce the introduction of the legislation were Bayli Silberstein, an 8th grade student in Florida, and Becky Collins, the mother of an openly gay high school student in Ohio. Bayli made national headlines this year in response to her efforts to create a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), a student-led club to combat the name-calling and harassment she and her friends experience at school. In the fall of 2011, the brutal, unprovoked beating of Becky’s son Zach made national headlines when a video of the incident went viral online.
The Student Non-Discrimination Act, which is among the ACLU’s highest LGBT legislative priorities in Congress, would require schools to take LGBT harassment and bullying seriously when parents or students tell them about it, and provides LGBT students and their families with appropriate legal remedies against discriminatory treatment (e.g. refusing to allow a student to bring a same-sex date to prom).
http://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/single-most-important-step-congress-could-take-improve-lives-lgbt-students
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