Contact Information:

Principal Jay Engeln
Palmer High School
301 North Nevada Avenue
Colorado Springs CO 80903-1299
Phone: 719-520-2800

SUPERINTENDENT: KENNETH S BURNLEY
Colorado Springs School District 11

1115 NORTH EL PASO STREET
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80903-2599
Phone Number: (719) 520-2000
Fax Number : (719) 577-4546

Also write to William J. Moloney,
Colorado Commissioner of Education
201 E. Colfax Ave.
Denver CO 80203

DENVER POST, February 5, 1999
650 15th Street,Denver,CO,80202
(Fax 303-820-1369 ) (E-MAIL: Letters@denverpost.com )
( http://www.denverpost.com )

Students lose bid for school gay club

By Cara DeGette, Special to The Denver Post

School District 11 officials have refused to sanction a local high school gay-youth club, claiming that if the student organization were authorized, it would open the floodgates for devil worshipers, Nazi sympathizers, whitesupremacist groups and even clubs organized to bash gays and lesbians.

A group of about 15 Palmer High School students has been trying to obtain a student-organization charter for the Palmer Gay and Lesbian Club since the beginning of the year. Organizer Dolores Garcia, a freshman, said her group wants to gather after school to open an ongoing social and political dialogue on gay and lesbian issues.

"One of my friends is gay, and I'm not, and we were talking one day and we realized that there was a lot of fear and mixed messages that gay students get from straights,'' Garcia said. "We thought this club would be a good thing and it was needed.''

But when Garcia and six other students approached Principal Jay Engeln to ask for a student club charter on Jan. 7, he was less than receptive, she said. A week later, Garcia said she met again with Engeln, but he again denied the request, calling it a special-interest group. He said that if he approved their club, then he would also have to recognize devil worshipers, white supremacists and hate groups who could potentially seek to organize student clubs.

"I think that's a very real concern,'' said Engeln this week.

Garcia appealed Engeln's decision to the district's director of school leadership, John Bushey. During an hour-long meeting with Bushey on Jan. 26, Garcia said the administrator also referred to hate groups as the reason to deny a gay/straight student club charter.

Bushey also said "he had to take into account the well-being of the school,'' she said.

The Palmer students' concept of a gay/straight student club is not new to Colorado Springs or the rest of the state. Sue Anderson, executive director of gay rights group Equality Colorado, estimated between six to 10 gay/straight youth clubs are operational statewide.

Palmer High School is no stranger to the controversy over gay student issues.
In 1997, a student newspaper article chronicling the difficulties of being a gay teenager resulted in an outcry from opponents organized by Colorado for Family Values, which launched an unsuccessful campaign to halt any discussion of homosexual issues in public schools.

Both Engeln and Bushey cited the school board's policy as the reason for their denial. "(A gay club) doesn't address the issues around curriculum and instruction and what we do in schools,'' Bushey said.

The policy, last revised by the Board of Education in May 1995, "endorses the creation of clubs and other approved school organizations for the purpose of reaching the interests of as many students as possible.''

A Palmer teacher has agreed to serve as the faculty adviser for the club, which Garcia envisions as similar in philosophy to a Hispanic social club that her older brother belonged to several years ago while attending Coronado High School.

There, students met to discuss Hispanic culture and current events. Students who have expressed interest in the Palmer Gay and Lesbian Club want to be able to gather at school to discuss current events, politics and the problems associated with homosexuality, and even conduct literary critiques of authors like Henry James, Walt Whitman and Tennessee Williams.

But Garcia said she could not convince Bushey that the student organization is not a "singles'' club where gay students meet.

She plans to appeal the decision to Superintendent Kenneth Burnley.

"Being gay is such a huge issue right now - it's just a huge social issue - and the more we can open the door to acceptance and education the better,'' she said.

A gay/straight alliance club at Widefield High School south of Colorado Springs organized two years ago but has since "fizzled out'' from lack of interest, said Regina DiPovada, the program director of the Inside Out youth organization for gay and lesbian teenagers. Two similar clubs have been rejected in recent years at Palmer High and at nearby Falcon High School, she said.

Last year, Colorado's Cherry Creek School District was forced to recognize a gay/straight student organization at Smoky Hill High School after a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court alleging school officials there refused to sanction their club.

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Jessea NR Greenman, jessea@uclink4.berkeley.edu
"Talk does not cook rice." Chinese proverb.

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