Poster Power

Labor Day, and the beginning of school, is less than a week past. So it should be no surprise that, as surely as fall leaves adorn classroom bulletin boards, a school district is tied up in knots about whether they should allow a GLSEN Safe Space poster in the classroom.

Because, after all, they don’t want to single out one group of students for “special privileges.” They want to protect all students.

GLSEN's poster

Right. Just look at the language folks used to avoid saying the words “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.” According to Rutherford County Schools Staff Attorney Jeff Reed, they are “a national interest group.” Penny Johnson, director of “Parents for Truth in Education (PTE),” thinks hanging the poster is about “privilege” and “special treatment” for one group of students.

Want to know more about PTE? They fear kids aren’t learning “the absolute truth” in schools because “textbooks have been filled with progressive, liberal agendas that seek to destroy and distort our history and way of life.”

One big item on that progressive agenda—yes, we admit it—is trying to keep LGBT kids, along with other vulnerable students, from being treated like pariahs or subjected to abuse.  

Meanwhile, GLSEN’s 2011 school climate survey reported that LGBT youth in Tennessee are already getting plenty of “special treatment.” Here’s what they report: 90 percent hear homophobic remarks from fellow students; 23 percent hear them from staff; and 90 percent have been bullied based on their sexual orientation. 

So we have to applaud social studies teacher Allen Nichols for trying to carve out at least one space where LGBT kids could feel safe. And we also applaud the allies who showed up to voice their support at the school board meeting.

Teaching Tolerance's poster

It’s particularly odious that Reed has chosen to cast this as a matter of teacher speech and a teacher’s personal opinion. I think we can all see where he’s going: If it’s teacher speech, then—because he is a public employee—the poster would be off-limits in the classroom. 

If the statement that “All students deserve a safe and welcoming school environment” is just one guy’s personal opinion—and not allowed in a classroom—we’re in big trouble.

But let’s take the district at its word. Don Odum, the district’s director, says, “We have a desire to protect the interests of all students in our school system.” And Reed suggested that if the poster were on a “general bulletin board where all students post items,” that would be fine.

We really hope Central Magnet School has just such a bulletin board. And we’re inviting all of Central’s students to download our poster—it includes everyone—and pin it up.

In fact, I’m putting a couple in the mail right now, for Reed, Odum, the school’s principal and every member of the school board.

Costello is the director of Teaching Tolerance.