Under Fire, Minn. School District Changes Controversial Policy

Two lawsuits and a heartbreaking Rolling Stone article have drawn recent attention to a controversial Minnesota school district’s policy forcing teachers to be “neutral” on the subject of homosexuality. But this week, a new policy takes effect—one that many parents, teachers, and advocates hope will slow the epidemic of anti-gay bullying and halt a wave of suicides.

From 1994 until 2009, the official policy at Anoka-Hennepin School District, the largest school district in Minnesota, was a ban on “promotion” of homosexuality. The policy was meant to appease the loud evangelical minority in the district who argued that they did not want their children taught that being gay was “an acceptable alternative lifestyle.”

After a student filed an official complaint that he had been gay-bashed by teachers, the district changed its policy to state that teachers “shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student-led discussions.”

But this policy, several teachers told Rolling Stone, was vague. Because nobody could tell what it actually meant, it often barred teachers from speaking at all on the topic. Meanwhile, students interviewed by Rolling Stone described a virulently anti-gay climate that was not challenged by teachers or administrators; four of nine students who killed themselves in the last two years were allegedly the victims of persistent homophobic bullying.

Facing overwhelming criticism and a mental health crisis, the school district is hoping it can move forward with a “Respectful Learning Environment” policy, effective immediately:

Political, religious, social, or economic issues may become contentious in a learning environment in which conflicting views are held by a broad segment of people in our schools, our community, and the nation.

It is not the District’s role to take positions on these issues. Teachers and educational support staff shall not attempt in the course of their professional duties to persuade students to adopt or reject any particular viewpoint with respect to these issues.

Curricular discussions of such issues shall be appropriate to the maturity and developmental level of students; be of significance to course content; and be presented in an impartial, balanced and objective manner, allowing respectful exchange of varying points of view. Lessons shall be designed to help students think critically and develop decision-making skills and techniques for examining and understanding differing opinions.

In the course of discussions of such issues, district staff shall affirm the dignity and self-worth of all students, regardless of their race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex/gender, marital status, disability, status with regard to public assistance, sexual orientation, age, family care leave status or veteran status.

The policy notably requires teachers to affirm gay and lesbian students (although gender identity is not included). While it prevents teachers from rejecting even non-scientific perspectives on homosexuality, it’s at least not a policy of silence.

While the Southern Poverty Law Center is proceeding with a lawsuit it filed last summer on behalf of five Anoka-Hennepin students, the organization called the change “an important first step.” The five student plaintiffs say the neutrality policy encouraged bullying and created a hostile environment.

This recent amendment is an acknowledgement that this policy was damaging and neutrality policies in general, which treat students’ often-scorned sexual orientations as “controversial topics,” weight the school environment in favor of homophobia: Teachers cannot counterbalance bullying students or console their victims in any real way.

Sadly, the new policy comes too late for many of Anoka-Hennepin’s tormented students—and still endorses the idea that ideology, when it comes to homosexuality, can supercede reality.

But they’re wise to change the policy, and it’s better late than never. As Elie Wiesel said in his 1986 Nobel acceptance speech, “neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Shay O'Reilly is a staff writer with Campus Progress. Follow him on Twitter @shaygabriel.

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