Message from:
The Coalition for Safer Schools of NYS, PO Box 2345, Malta, NY 12020
John Myers, Director of Operations and Programs
Email to:SARATOGANY@aol.com
The Real or Perceived Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Student Protection Project

===================================================================
Comment then Boston Globe article:

The Chancellor of Boston University John Silber has directed the affiliated BU Academy to disband their gay-straight alliance. The Academy is for academically strong students in grades 8 through 12.

According to the Boston Globe the importance of such groups is primarily to serve as a deterrent to suicide. I wish they would put a little more emphasis on the fact that these groups are also useful in combatting anti-gay speech and acts that are ever-present in virtually every school. More than a place for a student to explore their sexuality, it is a place where an alienated student might feel safe, probably for the first time in their lives.

I would like to see the Chancellor contacted directly. If lobbying fails, then maybe there should be a campaign to alert University sponsors and contributors to withhold funds and support.

It took quite a bit of searching at the site to find the phone number. Apparently SIlber does not have an e-mail address. His office number is 617-353-4300

For those who would like to do some independent research, Silber's profile at the BU site is a good place to start:
http://www.bu.edu/philo/faculty/silber.html

-- Scott (LelioRisen@aol.com)
=========================================

The Boston Globe, 9/6/02
Box 2378,Boston,MA,02107
(Fax 617-929-2098)
(E-MAIL:letter@globe.com)

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/249/metro/BU_tells_Academy_to_drop_gay_group+.shtml

BU tells Academy to drop gay group
By Douglas Belkin, Globe Staff, 9/6/2002

Boston University Chancellor John Silber ordered the headmaster of the prestigious BU Academy to disband a support group for gay and lesbian students. The administrator, James Tracy, this week complied, according to several teachers and a BU spokesman.

University spokesman Kevin Carleton said Silber does not believe the school should host any organization that deals with student sexuality.

Silber ''is not hostile to any particular gender orientation, but he feels that it's not appropriate for a school, particularly one that begins at the lower end of the secondary level, to be getting involved in the sexuality of its students,'' Carleton said.

The academy, located on Commonwealth Avenue on university grounds, was started under Silber's auspices in 1993.

Several faculty members at the academy, all of whom asked not to be identified, said the headmaster told them on Tuesday that the gay-straight student alliance could no longer exist on campus.

The teachers said they were outraged and feared the message that canceling the group would send to students. They said Tracy had no choice. Silber had made up his mind and there was nothing Tracy could do about it, according to the teachers.

State Senator Cheryl Jacques, an openly gay member of the Senate, criticized the decision.

''It's misguided,'' she said. ''Gay-straight alliances are important organizations that help teach tolerance and prevent tragedies.''

The school's gay-straight alliance is two years old and offers information and support to students who are questioning their sexuality.

But Silber, who resumed day-to-day control of the university after a six-year hiatus, ''questioned the rationale of running a school that engages in activities that are not germane to its purpose,'' Carleton said.

Two teachers at the academy said the headmaster told them Silber threatened to cut funding to the academy if the program was not abolished.

Tracy, reached last night, declined to comment on what Silber said would happen if he did not kill the program, but he acknowledged the academy is intricately linked to BU.

''We're part of the university,'' Tracy said. The financial support the academy receives from the university ''has never really been enumerated; it's like asking how much money does the history department get.''

The academy was created as a four-year school for academically talented students, but now includes eighth-graders as well. Boston Magazine recently rated it one of the best private schools in the state.

Tuition at BU Academy tops $19,000, and average SAT scores are 1430, more than 400 points above the national average, according to the magazine.

Gay-straight alliances started in Massachusetts nine years ago as an antidote to the exceptionally high suicide rate among gay and bisexual high school students. According to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health report released in May 2001, about 40 percent of that student population have attempted suicide.

Last year the academy group consisted of about 10 students who met once a week in a classroom, teachers said. In April they sponsored a day of silence in which about one-fourth of the school's 135 students did not speak for the day as a way to symbolically honor the gay, lesbian, and transgender people in the world who have been silenced by society.

Since the 1993-94 school year, Massachusetts has helped pay for gay-straight alliances at schools that want them. It is the only state that does so. Last year, the Department of Education handed out a total of $285,725 in grants of between $500 and $3,000 to 156 schools.

Today, more than 800 schools in 47 states have similar alliances on campus and the number of groups has more than tripled in the last three years, according to the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.

Jacques said she plans to call Silber's office to ''educate him'' about the pressure gay students are under and where that can lead.

''It's everyone's responsibility, including the schools, to make sure that no child commits suicide for any reason,'' Jacques said.

Douglas Belkin can be reached at dbelkin@globe.com.
===============================================================
This message has been distributed as a free informational service for the expressed interest of non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Subscribe at saratogany@aol.com

John Myers
Director of Operations and Programs
(518) 587-0176

Return to P.E.R.S.O.N. Project Home Page