Gay rights group says district vowed to take steps to uphold nondiscrimination policy

Evan Cook

A key Dallas Independent School District employee says she isn’t aware of an agreement that a gay civil rights group claims was made recently with the district to help protect LGBT students.

And other educators are left wondering if anything will ever get better.

Last week the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund sent out a press release saying that DISD had agreed to six steps to help uphold its non-discrimination policy for LGBT students.

Those six steps are training on community issues for staff; allowing groups such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and PFLAG to provide in-service training for teachers; changing permission forms to say “parent one” and “parent two” instead of mother and father; providing LGBT-friendly library materials on shelves and not behind counters; allowing access to the Web sites of LGBT organizations that are currently blocked; and making Lambda Legal materials on the rights of youth available at all middle and high school counseling offices.

The press release says interested people can call Mary McCants, DISD’s equal opportunity compliance manager. But in a written statement responding to calls for information, McCants said, “I can not comment on the agreement as I have not seen it. ... My lack of knowledge regarding the specific agreement, however, has no bearing on the compliance of the Dallas ISD with the law or with district policies.”

Openly gay teacher DISD teacher Evan Cook said he isn’t surprised.

Cook said teachers at his campus have heard nothing about these agreements, and he said he’s seen firsthand that they aren’t being followed.

“The Dallas Voice is something that is available at the inside of doorways in groceries stores and businesses at hand-reach level even for toddlers, and it is blocked still and listed as adult lifestyles on DISD computers. I checked it out today,” he said.

Cook also tried logging on to 365gay.com and Advocate.com. Both were still blocked despite the press release saying the district will allow access to them.

Cook had petitioned the district to unblock three Web sites for his class, and he says it took “no time at all ... maybe a week.”

Even if the measures are carried out, Kristy Vowels — a founding member of the committee working with Lambda and the school district — said she has concerns that it’s not enough.

“I think this is good. But … I almost feel like they pacify us. They give us a bone and there is no follow-up,” Vowels said.

There is, she said, still a huge stigma in education about being gay.

Kristy Vowels

“They still need to promote more openly gay people into leadership positions, so people in the district feel they have someone they can talk to so that stigma is removed from being gay. Then other steps will follow,” Vowels said.

Cook said he thinks more educators need to come out of the closet.

“I work with other people who are gay and won’t come out at work. They park their cars with rainbow stickers on them and go into a building and pretend they are straight,” he said.

“Things have changed at our campus, but they don’t change unless gay people come out of the closet. You have to stick your neck out on the line and you have to tell people you’re gay and what is and is not OK at work,” Cook added.

He gave a personal example of working with a Southern Baptist principal from Alabama:

“A few years ago, they had a health poster with how homosexuality is a mental illness hanging in the hallway. She reached up and ripped this poster off,” he said.

“It took a few years to cultivate that attitude, and you can’t get that unless you come out.

“That’s how the best change is going to come about.”



   
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition September 26, 2008.