School board told to enforce gay rights

By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Department of Education has no plan yet for implementing an antiharassment rule designed to protect gay students, more than a year after the Board of Education made an agonized decision to adopt the rule.

Gay rights advocates will testify before the board tomorrow, demanding action.

"We really tried to work with the DOE and BOE in implementing Chapter 19, but as we look today at what the status is, it's completely unacceptable," said Nancy Kern, who spearheaded the move to protect gay students.

Interim Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said the lack of a plan does not mean a lack of progress.

"It's not like the department isn't doing anything," she said. Many existing initiatives are aimed at creating safer schools, she said.

The board found itself immersed in the intense debate over sexual orientation when it rewrote its so-called Chapter 19 rule to bar students from harassing others because of gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, among other things.

Board members said the intent was to protect all students, but that the community focused on the issue of homosexuality. The board faced packed meetings, piles of written testimony and demonstrations on the streets.

Opponents said they feared the wording would require tolerance training that would be tantamount to endorsing homosexuality. Supporters said gay students need specific protection because they are targeted by students and staff.

The board passed the rule change in November 2000, then the department appointed 12 community members to a task force charged with creating a plan for implementation.

One year later, nothing has been achieved, according to Kern, who served on the task force.

The group met twice. A third meeting for October was postponed, and in the turmoil resulting from the resignation of former schools chief Paul LeMahieu, it was not rescheduled.

"It has been a long time — and one of the reasons is it has been difficult to get consensus," Hamamoto said.

The main reason for the stalemate, said Kern, is a division in the task force between those who supported the inclusion of "sexual orientation" and those who didn't. They still can't agree.

"The anti-gay bias of several committee members has hampered the ability of the DOE to implement the new definition of harassment in Chapter 19," Kern said.

But task force member James Hochberg said Kern and others used the situation as "an opportunity to push their agenda rather than honestly participating in the function they were supposed to perform."

The task force did produce a three-page list of recommendations, but reached no consensus.

Tomorrow Kern and other advocates will present the board with their recommendations to address harassment in Hawai'i's schools.

Among other things, the group wants mandatory annual training for school personnel, students and parents. According to the report, the training should focus on all protected classes of students, but a "significant portion" should focus on gay students, "given the long-standing historical neglect, pervasive societal nonacceptance and the continued obliviousness of the existence of harassment for this protected class of students."

Hochberg said he has no problem with those recommendations, except for the focus on sexual orientation.

"We tried to make general statements: No bullying for any reason," he said. "They rejected all that, saying if it didn't focus specifically on homosexuality they wouldn't support it."

Hochberg said his group is working on its own recommendations. And Hamamoto said the department will also present a report to the board in January.