Lack of school district policy on gays criticized

WASHINGTON -- The Clark County School District fails to protect gay students and staff from harassment and does not provide them with a safe learning environment, said an anti-discrimination gay group last week.

Clark County is one of 17 school districts across the country highlighted this year for failing to address gay bias issues, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which is based in New York and has 70 chapters across the country. The group released its 1998 "report card" at a news conference Thursday in Washington, D.C.

"They have a chance to ... make respect for every person regardless of any human difference part of the fiber of this very rapidly growing district," said Kevin Jennings, executive director of GLSEN. "They are blowing it."

Clark County received an "F" after GLSEN determined its public school system failed on its six objectives ranging from protecting students and staff from discrimination and harassment to supporting sensitivity training for teachers.

Jennings said it is critical for Clark County to incorporate strong anti-bias measures into the school district's anti-discrimination policy and encourage a gay-friendly curriculum while the community experiences a tremendous growth boom and its educational policies are shaped.

"It is a very rapidly growing district with lots of students," he said. "It is really just building the infrastructure of their educational system and failure to act at this stage is really damaging."

Ray Willis, director of public information for the school district, said there is no policy that specifically protects gays and lesbians.

"We do have an all-inclusive policy, and we do treat each individual circumstance of discrimination and harassment on its own merit," Willis said. "We do pursue each individual case vigorously."

Earlier this spring, the Clark County School Board grappled with whether to include specific language focusing on gay and lesbians into its anti-discrimination policy. Gay and lesbian advocates and members of the American Civil Liberties Union vocally supported listing specific groups, such as gays and lesbians, as protected.

Those groups believed a "laundry list" of protected groups would give principals better guidelines for identifying harassment.

After extensive discussions, the trustees voted 4-2 in April that it was better to approve a broadly-worded policy that does not mention gays.

Local gay activist Lee Plotkin said the vote had been telling. He said he was not surprised by GLSEN's report.

"It emphasizes that for being the ninth largest school district in the nation that we have quite a long way to go," Plotkin said.

SUN CORRESPONDENT Mark D. Preston works for States News Service. Sun reporter Benjamin Grove contributed to this story.

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