Human Rights Watch: “Hatred in the Hallways”

May 31, 2001

About Human Rights Watch

Through its reports and advocacy efforts, Human Rights Watch works to stop abuses wherever they uncover them. Their timely, reliable disclosures have made them an essential source for anyone concerned with human rights. Their experienced staff of over 100 regional experts, lawyers and linguists helps explain why abuses break out and—most important—what must be done to stop them. Their

© Patricia Williams for Human Rights Watch, 2001

goal is to make governments pay a heavy price in reputation and legitimacy if they violate the rights of their people.

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Often their best tool is to publicize their information on human rights abuses in extensive reports in order to embarrass a government before its own citizens and in the eyes of the international community. Their reports have often resulted in immediate action by decision-makers to solve the problem documented in the report. For example, their report on children in adult prisons resulted in an immediate meeting with the governor and legislation preventing future preventing similar human rights abuses. Just last month, their report on rape in US prisons resulted in the immediate introduction of federal legislation on the issue.

About This Report

In 1999, staff at GLSEN and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund approached HRW about the idea of investigating anti-LGBT bias in schools as human rights abuses. The resulting report, Hatred in the Hallways, illustrates how the rights of LGBT youth are categorically violated because schools do not protect them from harassment in accordance with national and international laws and standards. “Our findings make clear that this isn’t just teasing. These are human rights violations,” says Michael Bochenek, a HRW attorney and co-author of the report. “Students have the right to an education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and violence. Nobody should have to go to school in survival mode.”

Bohenek and his co-author A. Widney Brown, also an HRW attorney, conducted interviews from October 1999 to October 2000 during visits to California, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Utah. They interviewed 140 youth from diverse backgrounds between the ages of 12 and 21, as well as 130 adults, including youth service providers, teachers, administrators, counselors, and parents.

According to the report, nearly all of the young people reported incidents of verbal or other nonphysical harassment in school because of their real or perceived sexual orientation. Name-calling, written notes, obscene or suggestive cartoons and graffiti containing anti-gay epithets were part of their every day experience. Left unchecked, such incidents of harassment sometimes escalated into more serious forms of victimization, such as physical harassment and abuse

Introduction

To the more than two million lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth of school age living in the United States, Dylan N.’s story is all too familiar. It is a story of harassment, abuse and violence, a story of deliberate indifference by school officials who disclaim any responsibility for protecting Dylan or ensuring his access to an education, a story of escalating violence, a story of the failure of legal protection and finally, a story of a young man denied an education because of his sexual orientation. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents human rights violations lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth are subjected to on a daily basis by their peers, and in some cases, by teachers and school administrators. These violations are compounded by the failure of federal and state governments to enact laws which would protect students from discrimination and violence based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, effectively allowing school officials to ignore violations of these students’ rights.

Gay youth spend an inordinate amount of energy plotting how to get safely to and from school, how to avoid the hallways when other students are present so they can avoid slurs and shoves, how to cut gym class to escape being beaten up, in short, how to become invisible so they will not be verbally and physically attacked. Too often, students have little energy left to learn. In interviews, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth explained how teachers and administrators turned their backs, refusing to take reports of harassment, refusing to condemn the harassment and failing to hold accountable students who harass and abuse. Some school officials blame the students being abused of provoking the attacks because they “flaunt” their identity. Other school officials justify their inaction by arguing that students who “insist” on being gay must “get used to it.” And finally, some school officials encourage or participate in the abuse by publicly taunting or condemning the students for not being “normal.” For gay youth who survive by carefully concealing their sexual orientation or gender identity, they learn that they will be protected only if they deny whom they are – a message that too often leads to self-hatred and a fractured sense of identity.

The federal government has, in violation of its obligations under international law, failed to enact measures that would explicitly provide protection from violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Only four states have enacted laws that explicitly prohibit harassment of gay and lesbians students. As a result, the vast majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth are not only left unprotected by school policies, but are treated as if they are the problem when they report harassment and violence to school officials. This denial by school officials that they have any responsibility or duty to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students from harassment and violence stands in sharp contrast to their response to other forms of discrimination. For example, virtually every public school in the United States has a policy prohibiting race-based discrimination. Every student, teacher and administrator we interviewed was clear that as a matter of school policy and usually of practice that race based attacks on students will be condemned and punished.

In contrast, the vast majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth trying to escape the hostile hallways of their schools confront school officials who refuse to recognize the serious harm inflicted by the attacks and to provide redress for them. In fact, there is not even a token consensus among public school officials that gay youth deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. The systematic failure of the public school system in the U.S. to protect these students means that they are left to struggle in isolation to survive the harassment as they seek an education or to escape the hostile climate by dropping out of school. The burden these students bear is exacerbated in many cases by the rejection of their families, condemnation within their communities, being demonized by individual teachers and administrators, and rejection by members of the adult lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities who are too scared of being identified themselves to offer support to gay youth. But societal discomfort with the existence of gay youth in no way excuses the failure of the state to protect these students from discrimination, harassment and violence in public schools. Society’s deeply held prejudices against marginalized groups can never justify violations of the principle of non-discrimination. In this report, we document the devastating impact of pervasive animus towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The problem is not that these youth are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The problem is impunity for school officials who, through acts of commission and omission, violate these students right to be free from persecution and discrimination.

This report contains stories of pain and rejection, resilience and defiance, courage and grace. But a common thread running through virtually all these stories is isolation and the almost total failure of the public school system to take seriously the rights of these students. Each day, most gay youth walk into their schools wondering what they will have to face—taunts, food thrown in the face, lewd mockery in the locker room, being slammed “accidentally” against lockers during the change in classes, all in front of teachers who hear and see no evil. For some, the burden of coping each day with the endless harassment is too much. They drop out of school. Some commit suicide. For others, they just barely survive as they navigate the open hostility of peers and the deliberate indifference of school officials. They try to do well academically, but much of their energy is focused on surviving another day. A few fight back, demanding that the school administration take the harassment seriously, that recognition of gays and lesbians be integrated into the curriculum, that they be allowed to organize gay-straight alliances, and that they be encouraged to celebrate their identity.

This report is about the failure of the government, specifically public school officials, teachers and administrators, to fulfill their obligation to ensure that all youth have access to an education in an environment where they are protected from discrimination, harassment and violence. No child should have to go to school in survival mode. No school district should heave a sigh of relief when yet another gay student has dropped out, allowing the district to claim “there are no homosexuals here.” Despite what some adults may want to believe, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth are everywhere—growing up in rural communities, in small towns, in suburbs, in immigrant communities, in communities of color, in inner cities, in religious communities, and on the streets. Their sexual orientation and gender expression are two pieces of the mosaic of their identity. Every youth deserves to be treated with respect and to be protected from discrimination, harassment, and violence and to be encouraged to learn and to grow intellectually and emotionally without being asked to deny an essential component of his or her identity.

Conclusion

" It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 457, 469 (1897)

This is a report about the abject failure of the United States government to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth from harassment and violence when they attend public schools. The government, at the local, state and federal level, has refused to dismantle the laws, policies and practices that effectively discriminate against these youth. The entrenched societal prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth is based on rigidly enforced rules controlling appropriate behavior for girls and boys and is premised on boys inherent superiority to girls.

The impact of this harassment and discrimination is devastating. Gay students hear, according to one study, an antigay epithet every seven minutes while in school. But what makes it even more devastating is that the adults charged with protecting and educating the students turn their backs on them. The peer harassment, left unchecked, escalates into violence. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students describe their daily experiences as living in survival mode. Not surprisingly, they lose their focus; their grades drop; some drop out; and a few commit suicide.

There is no possible justification for why school officials turn their backs on these students. The foundational principle of human rights is that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. But for more than two million school age youth in the United States, who are different from the majority of their peers, they soon learn that the principle of equality does not apply to them. They are rejected by school official who either agree with the socially sanctioned prejudice against sexual minorities in the United States, or cave into pressure from those who promote the prejudice.

The role of government in defending and promoting the human rights of its citizens is to challenge ingrained prejudice, dismantle legal and de facto discrimination and ensure that all are treated with dignity and respect. Both the federal and state governments have failed miserably. Despite this failing, the youth we interviewed continue to challenge their school districts, principals and teachers. They demand that school officials protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth from harassment and violence from peers and teachers. It is a demand which must be met. But it must be met not just for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, but for all youth. School administrators, teachers, counselors, parents, and youth service providers must understand that failing to protect gay youth ultimately harms all youth.

When adults fail to model and teach respect for all youth, and indeed for all human beings, they send a message that it is acceptable to demean and attack others because they are perceived to be different. It is a message that can only hurt its recipients. Part of being a teenager is building one’s identity. By tolerating discrimination, harassment, and violence—whether based on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, immigration status, or disability—adults imbue this process of learning about one’s self with negative judgments. The youth who harass others not only are learning behavior which is ultimately harmful to themselves but are acting out their awareness of society’s failure to respect the equality and dignity of all human beings.

Recommendations

Human Rights Watch calls for immediate action by school districts, the states, and the federal government to end these abuses. Such action should include the following steps:

* All school district policies should explicitly prohibit harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. School districts should also ensure that these policies are implemented fully; where gaps exist between policy and practice, they should take immediate measures to close the gap by training all staff and students.

* State legislatures should enact laws to protect students from harassment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

* The U.S. Department of Education should monitor school districts for compliance with the principle of nondiscrimination, intervene where policies are failing, and include sexual orientation and gender identity in data collection tools measuring discrimination in education.

* Federal and state government should enact legislation to protect administrators, teachers, counselors, other school staff, and all employees from discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Find out what you can do

Read the full report online