Topeka, Kansas School District Approves First Reading Of LGBT Anti-Discrimination Policy

A Kansas school district is considering adding sexual orientation and gender identity to its anti-discrimination policy.

The Topeka Unified School District 501 Board of Education unanimously voted last week to approve a preliminary draft that adds sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression to the school district's anti-discrimination policies, The Topeka Capital-Journal reports.

While advocates support the move to be more inclusive, opponents argue that current anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies already include those groups, rendering the move unnecessary.

Cindy Kelley, the school district's attorney, told the Capital-Journal that the additions were the result of recommendations by the U.S. Department of Education.

"This will provide an internal mechanism to help kids understand that they have a way to deal with such harassment," Kelly told the Capital-Journal.

Topeka's initial passage comes as West Virginia just announced a proposal for an anti-bullying policy in schools that for the first time, recognizes sexual orientation and gender identity as common reasons for harassment and school bullying.

West Virginia's Board of Education will vote on its proposal in December, to take effect next July.

These state initiatives to curb bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in schools come amid a growing movement among school officials and students to fight harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The proposals also come on the heels of a new California law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last month and known as Seth's Law, that tightens anti-bullying policies in the state's public schools through a number of measures.

Comments

[thereisonlyoneparty]

01:29 AM on 11/10/2011

Society is going the wrong way.  Instead of working to tear down granfalloons, people are working strengthen their place in society.

It is complete nonsense.  Social constructs and self-identified groups are not deserving of protection.  They should not exist at this point in time.  Why are people so unwilling to move past the failures of obsolete social science and accept the modern theories that better explain intraspecies interactions?

I just do not get it.

[DeeperLove]

08:40 PM on 11/09/2011

Kids will still be kids. It comes to parenting.

[kmgraham11]

11:09 AM on 11/09/2011

It blows me away that people have to "consider" adding this to their policy. Why would anyone think it was okay to bully or harass someone for any reason?

[thereisonlyoneparty]

01:24 AM on 11/10/2011

Because all of the added classes, aside from sex, are self-identified.  "gender" is a fluid social construct.  Sexual orientation is an attempt to group individuals based on arbitrary borders on a range of human behavior (sexual orientation is not discrete).  "Gender expression" is just odd as a class.

The real problem is that those enacting such regulations have little knowledge of modern social theory.  Self-identified groups should not be protected.  That includes "race" and religion.  Skin color is different in that it is can be a target of not-goodness, but the artificial "racial" groups around it are really not ("race" refers historically to osteometry anywise; skin color does not matter).

It is just odd how humans limit certain interactions.  Is there really a difference between someone from a rival school mocking students and someone mocking someone who identifies as part of a religious group?  Not really.  Why is one acceptable--even encouraged--when the other is viewed as "wrong"?

Morality sucks as a basis for rules and law.  It is just so inconsistent.

[Jimmy Kilpatrick]

06:46 AM on 11/08/2011

I wonder why this small minority group of students needs special attention.

[Conuly]

09:58 AM on 11/08/2011

It's not special protection. It's the SAME protection students already had for other things such as race and religion.

[RondaGP]

10:54 AM on 11/08/2011

Really? You have to ask? I'm not trying to sound rude but that question shows your disconnect with public education.

Do you really think that LGBT kids can walk around campus or attend class with out being ridiculed or harassed (not to mention at times physically harmed) daily? Try to imagine what going to school would be like in their shoes for a few minutes.

This isn't special attention, this is protecting a small minority that desperately needs protection. I've worked at several schools and saw little done to make sure they were safe or got to attend school in an appropriate learning environment, other than maybe follow up complaints on an individual level, I can also attest that very few LGBT kids would complain because of the negative outcome.

[Emily Munko]

03:58 AM on 11/09/2011

I get what you mean. It is definitely a minority group; only about 1% of the population belongs to it. On the other hand, though, I don't think that it is special attention. I do think that it is pretty much the same as protection against bullying for race and religion. BUT, the only thing that I can't help but wonder is why do these things matter to people? Why is picking out differences between us and challenging them something that makes sense? I don't think that it is...To me, personally, we are all the same species, we inhabit the same planet, and we're stuck with eachother; so why can't we get along. Although, I don't think that it is okay to force opinions on certain things onto others. Homosexuality, for example, I'm not homosexual, I don't think it's wrong- in a way it's natural. But that doesn't meant that I am okay with people telling me constantly or forcibly that they are. I don't care if you are, it isn't important to me, so don't make it something that defines you, because it doesn't. Your personality does that.

[jonathan6773]

05:42 PM on 11/07/2011

Harsher laws are needed, so I support this. I'll bet you a nickel that Westboro Baptist Church will be outside the schools and protest.

[Fredphelps316]

05:29 PM on 11/07/2011

these sons of bitches know i'm gonna put my cataract sunglasses on and be picketing this horseshit from across the sidewalk

[Lori Day]

04:57 PM on 11/07/2011

Given what Michigan just did, this is apparently, sadly, quite necessary.

[bryanzth]

08:35 PM on 11/07/2011

Yep. Quite necessary. Here's one, Lori. I have heard that observation incorporates involuntary mimickry impulses. In a movie one might clench one's fist or tense leg muscles observing a character fight or run. A person observes something holding an interior image of him/herself doing the same. What if a person, who has been told that an action will result in pain, observes that action. There should be an unconscious mimicking response seeing that action. So, if a person knows that smoking is bad, observing smoking might cause a coughing response, even though there's no smoke. Extend that to observing two people of the same gender having a french kiss, let's say, and a person who has been "carefully taught" this is bad might internally experience that same action and then reflect on what they have been told. They would imagine themselves doing it (kissing) and bingo - big internal conflict. How to resolve that conflict in such a "carefully taught" person would be to externalize the conflict, placing the fault on those observed. And repeating over and over with observations that generate the conflict with a response pattern to persecute or attack others. I am not making excuses for bullies, but trying to link this idea with bullying behaviour that seems so irrational. The "carefully taught" is from South Pacific, where Lt. Cable sings about racism and bigotry. Thanks. BZ.

[Razpooten]

11:13 PM on 11/07/2011

Or the victims of bullying could do what I do; get an attitude adjustment tool. (a 2X4 usually works wonders)