Equality Virginia believes that all students have the right to feel safe at school regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

If you are interested in introducing a model bullying policy into your school district, please click here to Take Action to Help Make Schools Safe.

GLBT students frequently are the subjects of harassment and bullying by peers, teachers, and school officials. Recent research by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) indicates that over 70% of GLBTQ youth are reporting hearing derogatory and anti-gay threats at school, and often they are unchecked by school staff and administrators. Such harassment and bullying undermines the positive learning environment that schools try to create, leads to lowered self esteem and can contribute to depression.

Despite the prevalence of such behavior, many school officials in Virginia continue to lack the training, information and resources about GLBTQ issues and schools lack resources to respond to and address the real needs of GLBT youth. 

Current statistics indicate that GLBTQ youth: make up approximately 33% of teenage suicides nationwide; are 60% more likely to be substance abusing/substance addicted than their heterosexual peers; and make up as many as 40% of calls to the national runaway hot-line. 

GLBT youth are not more at risk simply because of who they are; they are driven to depression and are forced to find other ways to cope with the negativity that they encounter daily from their teachers and peers. School professionals have an obligation to provide a positive environment for all of their students, and to role model and promote pro-social development for our youth, but they need to be educated on the risk and protective factors for GLBT youth and how to support these youth in facing most effectively given the unique challenges they may experience at home, school and in the community based upon their sexual orientation and gender identity.

 Bullying

EV Success: EV supported passage of anti-bullying legislation in 2005 and amendments to that law in 2010 to require policies against cyber bullying.

Virginia laws against bullying in public schools are rated A++ by BullyPolice.org. The laws do not, however, specify classes of individuals, including GLBT youth, who may be victims of bullying, harassment or violence at school. Nor does the law specifically define what behavior constitutes bullying.

State law, §22.1-279.9., requires local school boards to develop student conduct codes consistent with state published guidelines that prohibit bullying. Each board must include in its code of conduct prohibitions against bullying, hazing, and profane or obscene language or conduct.

Virginia law also requires school officials to develop character education programs that "address the inappropriateness of bullying, as defined in the Student Conduct Policy Guidelines adopted by the Board of Education pursuant to §22.1-279.6."

The General Assembly has encouraged teachers, school volunteers and school officials to report bullying to appropriate authorities by affording them immunity from civil suit for making such reports in good faith. §8.01-22.1:2 The same statute also makes clear that immunity afforded teachers for actions within the scope of their employment does not protect them from legal actions to redress "bullying" by them of students.

Taken together these laws provide a framework for active advocacy by students, parents, teachers, school administrators and local citizens in favor of the adoption and implementation of local school division policies, conduct codes and disciplinary policies that provide effective protection for GLBT students against bullying, harassment and intimidation and encourage school climates that prevent such acts from occurring.

Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs)

EV Success: Efforts to pass a state law banning the formation of GSA's directly or indirectly have been unsuccessful because of Equality Virginia's effective advocacy against such legislation. This leaves the decision whether to support GSAs in the hands of local school boards and the parents and students they serve.

Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) are clubs that seek to create a safe space for GLBT youth and foster understanding in heterosexual peers.  GSAs are present in many high schools in Virginia (GLSEN reported 103 schools had such clubs as of June 2007). GSAs empower Virginia GLBT youth to succeed in the face of bullying and harassment and to make active steps to improve their school environment.

Nonetheless, some school officials and members of the Virginia General Assembly have shown continued resistance to the establishment and support of GSAs in Virginia schools. This prevents students from establishing a safe space and arming themselves with the tools that they need to begin to build bridges of understanding.

School divisions, as as those in Rockingham County and Harrisonburg, have chosen to institute permission slip programs (opt-in programs) despite the litigation risk and administrative burdens involved. Others, such as those in Fairfax County, publish a list of active student clubs at each school and give parents the right to decline permission for their children to participate (opt-out programs). Still others, such as Chesterfield County, have held public hearings and have chosen NOT to institute a permission slip program.

Federal law provides some protection against discriminatory school policies that single out GSAs for adverse policies. Federal law explicitly prohibits such "viewpoint discrimination" in setting school access policies, the Equal Access, 20 U.S,C, sec, 401 et seq.

In addition, school board actions specifically designed to limit the formation of GSAs also would jeopardize students' fundamental rights to freedom of expressive association, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Virginia Bill of Rights. Both students and adults have the right to associate freely, and this right is not limited to political groups, but includes associations for social, legal and economic purposes. Roberts v. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984); Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212 (1975), Gay Alliance of Students v. Matthews. 544 F.2d 162 (4th Cir. 1976).

Take Action to Help Make Schools Safe:

1. Meet with your school board members and school administrators to discuss how the student conduct code can be amended and enforced to better protect GLBT students from bullying, intimidation and harassment.

An EV recommended Model Policy may be downloaded here.

EV recommends the following policies as models for consideration by local school divisions:
-Michigan State Board of Education, Model Anti-Bullying Policy
-Ohio Department of Education, Model Policy for Districts Prohibiting Bullying, Harassment and Intimidation
-New Jersey Department of Education, Model Policy Guidance for Prohibiting Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying
-Maryland's Model Policy to Address Bullying, Intimidation or Harassment
-Georgia Department of Education, Model Policy for Prohibiting Bullying, Harassment and Intimidation.

2. Join Equality Virginia in supporting the work of ROSMY and GLSEN in promoting strategies to make schools safer including the establishment of GSA’s.

3. Start a GSA at your high school. See the Jump Start Guide in the resources section below.

4. Talk to your school board or local schools about setting up a training program for teachers and school administrators on GLBT issues.  ROSMY provides fee-for-service training for school personnel, mental health professionals, court services and social service agencies.  http://www.rosmy.org/.

5. Meet with school board members and school administrators to educate them about the importance of GSA’s to the prevention of harassment and bullying. Ask them to include violence toward and hazing of sexual minority youth in their required crime and violence prevention and school safety plans. Prepare to oppose anti-GSA policies presented to your school board.

6. Meet with your state delegate and senator to educate them about the importance of GSA’s to the prevention of harassment and bullying.  Prepare to oppose anti-GSA legislation.

7. If you have been the victim of bullying, harassment, discrimination or violence at your school Tell It! to Equality Virginia.

Resources

• Teens Learn and Live the Law, Defining Bullying by the Virginia Office of the Attorney General
• Rating Virginia Law, Bully Police USA
• Bullying Prevention and Response,BullyingInfo.org
• Safe Schools Contacts and other resources, ROSMY (Richmond Organization of Sexual Minority Youth)
• Safe Space Campaign, GLSEN 
• Jump Start Guide for Gay-Straight Alliances, GLSEN Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network 
• From Teasing to Torment: A Report on School Climate in Virginia, GLSEN (2006)  
• How to Start a Gay-Straight Alliance, Gay-Straight Alliance Network 
• Bullying is Nothing New, but Psychologists Identify New Ways to Prevent It, American Psychological Association 
• Stop Bullying Now, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
• Bullying, Harassment, School-Based Violence, The Safe Schools Coalition (includes links to student and family guides in English and Spanish for responding to anti-LBGTQ violence)