Report from Washington Blade:
The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, a national group that advocates for LGBT youth in the nation’s schools, says LGBT students and youth of color have been disproportionately impacted by overly harsh school disciplinary practices.
In a statement released earlier this month, GLSEN praised a new Obama administration initiative to discourage elementary and secondary schools from administering student discipline based on race or other discriminatory grounds.
But the GLSEN statement notes that the initiative issued jointly by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice doesn’t specifically reference LGBT youth, raising concern that overly harsh disciplinary practices will continue to funnel LGBT students into what education experts call a “school to prison pipeline.”
This so-called “pipeline,” education reform advocates say, refers to students who land in the criminal justice system, including prison, after being repeatedly suspended or expelled from school. Reform advocates, including GLSEN, have argued that alternative disciplinary approaches should be employed to ensure school safety without overly relying on suspension and expulsion as punishment.
GLSEN has pointed to numerous cases where LGBT students are suspended or expelled for “fighting back” after being targeted for bullying and violent attacks by other students.
“Ending discriminatory practices in school discipline is one of the most critical civil rights issues facing K-12 education today,” GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said in the group’s statement.
“GLSEN commends the Departments of Education and Justice for these long-overdue guidelines that will help to erode decades of policies that have robbed countless youth of a chance to get an education and forced many of them out of school and into the criminal justice system,” she said.
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