Unfinished Lives

Asher Brown’s Legacy: Anti-Gay Bullying Ban in Houston Public Schools

Houston, Texas – By a vote of 7 to 0, with two board members absent, the Houston Independent School District made LGBT discrimination and anti-gay bullying against policy for all students and employees in Houston public schools.  The action came in response to outrage over the “bullycide” suicide of 13-year-old Asher Brown, who took his own life after two years of intolerable harassment for his sexual orientation in Cypress-Fairbanks School District schools.  His parents have testified that they repeatedly contacted school officials about the violence focused on their gay son, but to no avail.  No school official or teacher intervened to stop the bullying and save Asher’s life. The gay teenager’s death in September 2010 sparked a state-wide effort to revise school policies to ban harm to LGBTQ students while on school property. The Dallas Voice picked up the story of the policy change from the Facebook page of HRC board member Meghan Stabler, and is covering developments in Houston and Harris County.

The policy revision reads, in part: “A substantiated charge of harassment against a student or employee shall result in disciplinary action. The term “harassment” includes repeated, unwelcome, and offensive slurs, jokes, or other oral, written, graphic, or physical conduct relating to an individual’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability or handicap, or age, sex, marital status, veteran status, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational or work environment.”

Houston School Board Member Larry Marshall said that the revision will make district schools safer for all children, especially LGBT students: “I think this recommendation clearly signals to principals that when you enter a school building you are on our turf, and on our turf we are going to treat everyone with dignity and respect. I think that administrators need to thoroughly understand that anything else will not be tolerated.”

Because the Houston ISD is the seventh-largest school district in the nation, the action of the district school board to ban discrimination and bullying against LGBT students will exert substantial pressure on other school systems to revise and enforce fair treatment of all children.  Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, for example, the district where Asher Brown attended school, has not yet changed its policy towards LGBT student bullying and harassment.  Nothing will bring Asher back to his family and his friends.  The horror of his death will remain.  But actions like this policy revision, and vigorous education and enforcement of the ban will help ensure that no other family or school need go through the agony that surrounded the fragile life and death of a gentle teenager who just wanted to live an authentic life and be able to get a good education at the same time.

June 24, 2011 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bisexual persons, Bullying in schools, gay bashing, gay teens, Gender Variant Youth, GLBTQ, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Houston Independent School District, Human Rights Campaign, Lesbian women, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ, LGBTQ suicide, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transgender persons, transphobia | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bisexual persons, Bullying in schools, gay teens, GLBTQ, harassment, Heterosexism and homophobia, Houston Independent School District, Lesbians, LGBTQ, LGBTQ teen suicide, LGBTQ teen suicide prevention, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, transgender persons, transphobia | Comments Off on Asher Brown’s Legacy: Anti-Gay Bullying Ban in Houston Public Schools