GLSEN Conference [Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network]
KEYNOTE ADDRESS by Bob Chase, NEA President
(Chicago, Illinois October 7, 2000)

Good morning.

I join with you today not as Bob Chase but the president of the National Education Association - an organization of some 2.5 million people who work in public schools across the nation. But to be honest, not every one of these 2.5 million members is pleased that I am here this morning. In fact, the week before this conference, I received dozens of e-mails begging me not to attend -- or condemning me for doing so, although not all E-mails were from our members.

It seems that last week, the Family Research Council launched a campaign over the Internet, alerting everyone on its list-serve about my being here today. It urged anyone who is an NEA member to write me in protest - and to withdraw his or her membership in the association, if I did come.

At the risk of depressing you, I'd like share a few excerpts from the letters I received.

Dear Bob,
As the son of a mother who taught school for thirty years, I am offended that you have chosen to be the keynote speaker at the GLSEN annual convention. From this decision, it is clear that the NEA leadership has chosen to embrace an activist approach to integrating homosexuality into public schools, regardless of what parents may think. Shame on you for being part of it.

Dear Bob,
I hope you sleep well at night knowing that the NEA's actions are striking death blows at the very core of this great country's educational system.

Dear Bob,
Using our school . . . To further an unsafe and abhorrent lifestyle choice is inexcusable and is a dangerous precedent. It is indoctrinating and recruitment, not teaching. God will not be mocked!

Dear Mr. Chase,
I am sending a message to you to let you know I am very disappointed that you are attending and speaking at the GLSEN conference. When are we as an organization going to be concerned about children and not about political issues?

Dear Mr. Chase,
I am a NEA member and I wish that the NEA would get back to its core business of representing teachers. You should not be representing yourself as the NEA president in any engagement that has an agenda other than teachers' rights, benefits, and working conditions.

I think you get the idea. And these were among the tamer letters in the bunch.

Frankly, they were upsetting to receive. But they were also important. Because the attitudes, fears, and misconceptions they expressed are exactly the reasons why I am here today.
They are the attitudes, fears, and misconceptions that, yes, a number of our members do have. It's important to recognize this. According to research conducted in 1992, 80 percent of teachers harbor some negative attitudes towards gays and lesbians, and 53 percent of prospective teachers feel uncomfortable working with a gay or lesbian colleague. In fact, an astonishing two-thirds of guidance counselors were found to harbor negative feelings towards gays and lesbians.

Yet they are also the attitudes, fears, and misconceptions that other NEA members wrangle with every day as they strive to promote respect and tolerance in their classrooms.
They are also the attitudes, fears, and misconceptions that students themselves face as they try to figure out their own identities and their place in the world.

And they are the attitudes, fears, and misconceptions that can permeate a school environment.

And so, they are attitudes, fears, and misconceptions that needed to be confronted, addressed and dispelled.

Therefore, let it be stated for the record that I am here today precisely out of concern for the children our members teach, in the interests of teachers themselves, and with the hopes of fostering greater understanding and harmony in our schools and our society.

The NEA does not have what the right wing has branded a quote-unquote "radical pro-homosexual agenda." Rather we have a radical pro- civil-rights agenda -- a radical human agenda - the agenda of promoting equal respect, dignity, and educational opportunities for all.

This is an agenda that our association has supported -- and been proud of -- since its inception in 1857.

The NEA has long recognized that all discrimination is an anathema to public education. And the NEA has long considered it our association's responsibility - no, our moral imperative -- to ensure that no child - indeed, no person anywhere - be subjected to discrimination or harassment because of his or her race, religion, ethnicity, age, sex, physical disability, or, yes, sexual orientation.

We recognize that ending bias and bigotry is not only a civil rights issue, but also a pedagogical issue. Intolerance, discrimination, and harassment pose a direct threat to children in our classrooms, to the teaching process, and to the quality of public education as a whole.

You know, as NEA president, I visit schools all over the nation. Some of these are sleepy and rural. Others are chaotic and urban. But every single school needs the same qualities in order to function. They need to be safe. They need to be orderly. They need to be nurturing environments conducive to concentration and learning. Indeed, they need to be places where every child and teacher is valued, where every child and teacher is respected, where every child and teacher is considered worthy and capable. In short, they need to be sanctuaries.

But an environment of intolerance - intolerance of any kind -- completely undermines this.

Quite simply, teachers can't do our best job of teaching, and students can't learn as well, in an atmosphere that is charged with tension and intolerance - where bullying and name-calling go unchecked - or where students and teachers fear harassment because of what they believe, who they are, or even whom they are perceived to be.

Curiously, people generally understand this when it comes to something like gangs in a school. If there are, say, Asian gangs who have rivalries with Hispanic gangs in a high school, people understand that this is a dangerous and unacceptable situation. The school is not going to be a safe environment. Smoothing over ethnic tensions and violence becomes a top priority.

Similarly, people understand that if students call each other the N-word or "spics," or "kikes" in the hallways, there's going to be trouble. There may be fights in the schoolyard. Hostility in the cafeteria. Distractions in the classroom. Certainly, it's going to be hard for anybody to get much learning done. The entire school can become destabilized.

For that matter, if middle school girls are getting sexually harassed they start dreading going to school - maybe they begin cutting class and falling behind -- people understand that this problem is utterly unacceptable. The behavior of the boys has to be addressed - and altered.

Yet strangely, sadly, if a student gets called a "fag" or a "homo" by his peers, people are far less inclined to view this as a real problem. If a girl gets labeled a "dyke" and kids start ostracizing her, or if a boy who is perceived to be gay gets assaulted in the cafeteria all the time, people seem to take it less seriously than if, say, it was a racial incident.

"Oh, they're just being kids," is a standard explanation.
So is: "Well, there's always someone who gets picked on."
So is: "Well, what do they expect if they don't act like everyone else?"

But allowing such bullying and harassment to go unchecked is to be complicit in it. And it places students - particularly gay and lesbian students - at enormous risk.

Studies have found that 69 percent of gay and lesbian students have been verbally, physically, or sexually harassed at school.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people are up to four times more likely than their peers to report skipping school because of feeling unsafe.

They are four times more likely to be threatened with a weapon at school.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has found that 28 percent of all gay youth drop out of high school - usually to "escape the harassment, violence, and alienation they endure at school."

A University of Minnesota study also found that 26 percent - over one quarter of all gay youth - are forced to leave home because of conflicts with their families over their sexual identities.

In light of these statistics, it is no wonder that the Massachusetts Department of Education found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are four times more likely than heterosexual students to commit suicide.

As public school educators, these problems are our problem. These are problems forged in the crucibles of our workplaces, perhaps even by our own attitudes or myopia. And rectifying them is our responsibility; it is an education issue.

We cannot afford the obscene luxuries of complacency, denial, or selective tolerance. It is our job to educate all children - to educate them all well - to educate them equally - and to educate them to live harmoniously in a diverse society.

To fulfill this mission, we cannot turn a blind eye to a population who is being harassed, threatened, and often literally run out of our schools.

Again, this is not some special interest or radical agenda I'm talking about. It's a matter of basic human rights and decency. This is not a matter of promoting a quote "unsafe and abhorrent lifestyle," as one of our members put it, but a matter of protecting one of the most vulnerable populations from unsafe and abhorrent behavior.

It is not a matter of "recruiting" gay or lesbian students or teachers, but of retaining them - making sure that students do not drop out of school because they feel ostracized. Making sure that teachers' rights are protected, so that they are not discriminated against - so that they are not driven from the profession for reasons that have nothing to do with their competence in the classroom.

In fact, it's a matter of protecting all children. And all school employees.

We have all been horrified during the past two years when children have killed other children and teachers. While it has been difficult to establish a common reason behind the violence, one factor has come to light: in the majority of cases, name-calling and bullying were prominent.

We know that a major way to curtail violence among young people is relatively simple: stop name-calling and stop bullying. If any type of harassment is allowed to go unchecked - we increase the risk of violence in our schools and our communities.

As Martin Luther King once noted, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

So the question is "How do we ensure that our schools - and by extension - our communities, are safer for everyone?" By promoting tolerance and acceptance of people's fundamental human differences, including sexual orientation. By insisting that all people be treated with dignity and respect. And by insisting that all people receive fair and equal protection under the law.

You know, for decades NEA has promoted human and civil rights for people of color - people who too often were - and continue to be - denied equal protection under the law. Well, with age comes enlightenment. For the past decade, NEA has added to our calling. Now, we are committed to ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are also guaranteed equal protection. We remain steadfast in this advocacy for all, including gay and lesbian students, teachers, and education employees.

We have worked to protect these groups - like others -- through litigation, unionism, and political advocacy.

We support the Employee Nondiscrimination Act and hate crimes legislation.

For the past 12 years, we have implemented national training programs to educate school staff in every state of the union about the role they can and must play to stop anti-gay harassment in their schools.

We also strive to be a model for inclusive language and behavior. We insist that gay and lesbian issues are included in all diversity discussions at NEA staff and governance meetings.
And above all else, we're committed to education.

In 1999, we created "Strengthening the Learning Environment: A School Employee's Guide to Gay and Lesbian Issues." This is a resource guide that provides school staff with information they need to assist and support students in four crucial areas: education, safety, health, and legal issues. We've been pleased to hear that many principals are now including this guide in their teachers' handbooks.

In addition, we were proud to join the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the AFT, and half a dozen other national groups to help produce and distribute "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel." This pamphlet is designed to ensure that educators are not taken in by misinformation about sexual orientation and so-called "remedies" for it.

NEA has also encouraged school staff to use the video "It's Elementary" in order to educate themselves about actions they might take to address the needs and concerns of gay and lesbian students.

But beyond these measures, there's something else that each and every one of us can do - something beyond school-wide policies and programs. It's something I call "intimate vigilance."
You know, studies have shown that few school employees take action against bullying outside their primary areas of responsibility - teachers outside of their classrooms, cafeteria workers outside of the lunchroom, administrators outside of their offices, and so forth. For that matter, parents themselves don't always have the time or ability to intervene in what goes on socially in their children's schools.

Yet a little intervention goes a long way. This is what I mean by "intimate vigilance": Paying attention. Reaching out to children who seem distressed. Challenging their assumptions about people who are different from them. Calling them on inappropriate behavior and bullying. For that matter, it means having the courage to call our colleagues on racist or anti-gay jokes or language, too.

Sometimes intimate vigilance is just a matter of pulling a kid aside for a heart-to-heart and saying, "Look, I see how you're teasing that kid on the school bus. I'd like to talk to you about how you might feel if somebody did that to you." Or asking them, "How are you doing? I'm worried about you." Small acts of engagement and compassion can make a tremendous difference. Now, since I've worked in a middle school, I also know that adolescents in particular are not always the most likable people on the planet, like adults they can be moody. And rude, and difficult. Sometimes, frankly, it's tempting to leave them to their own devices, to say, "So what if they're call someone a fag? At this age, they're all hormonally insane. Just keep them out of my hair."

But both adults and children - especially adults - need to intervene whenever bullying happens. We can't wait for somebody else to step in. In so many communities, children get the idea that it's okay for somebody to be harassed - whether it's the short kid, or the nerdy kid, or the kid with the funny last name and the disability. Or, too often, the gay kid.

And when adults refuse to intervene in such hazing - or when we tacitly approve of this kind of behavior by saying glibly, "Oh, just ignore them" or "Everybody does it," we help to create an environment where intolerance and harassment are allowed to incubate.

We become complicit in discrimination.

So if we're going to create a safer environment for kids, each and every one of us has to decide upon some action that we, personally, going to take.

You know, in certain ways, we're living in almost Dickensian times - they're both the best and the worst. These are the best of times, I believe, in that America is steadily evolving into a healthier, more tolerant, and more accepting society. Using racist or sexist epithets in public -- or in polite conversation - is no longer tolerated. It is longer legal to discriminate against people because of their age, sex, race, religion, or physical ability.

And, as far as sexual orientation is concerned, there are more anti-discrimination laws on the books now than there were 20 years ago. Homosexuality is no longer a wholly taboo subject - or simply the punch line in some mean-spirited burlesque. The consciousness of our culture, I believe, has broadened in the past few years.

For proof of this, we need look no further than this audience. It includes gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but straight people - straight people who have had the courage to be up front about issues of sexual orientation and discrimination, and to deal with them courageously.

But in other ways, it is also the worst of times, because despite the inroads that has been made; in some places, racism and hatred still thrive. And it is still permissible to discriminate openly against people because of their sexual orientation. It is still considered acceptable to denigrate gays and lesbians - or even people suspected of being homosexual.

For proof of this, we need look no further than a windblown fence in Laramie, Wyoming, to journey. Today marks the second anniversary of the slaying of Mathew Shepard.

But I am a teacher. And I believe in the power of education. Our schools, our classrooms, and our kitchen tables - all the places where bigotry is first learned and ingrained - are also the greatest and best places to combat it. As Helen Keller once noted, "The highest result of education is tolerance."

And as a parent, I recognize that ultimately, all children are our children. And every one of them is worthy and precious. And because they are all our children, we must never condemn them for the things that make them different or unique. No, we must embrace them, and endorse them, and give them the protection, and respect, and support they need to shine. What kind of parents would we be if we did not? What kind of teachers would we be? What kind of society?

If we can preach nondiscrimination and practice it, I believe in, my heart or hearts, that just as our nation has begun to abhor racial bigotry, there will come a day when the majority of Americans will also abhor bigotry based on sexual orientation.
One day, it won't matter if you're brown, black or white.
One day, it won't matter if we are gay or straight.

One day, all of us - and I mean all of us - will be judged by the quality of our characters, our personalities, our hopes, and our talents - nothing less, nothing more.

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