A student at Okeechobee High School and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Nov. 15, 2006, to challenge the school board’s ban on the district’s Gay Straight Alliance club.
Okeechobee is a small town about 130 miles north of Miami. The case has achieved significant publicity since the suit
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”There’s so much discrimination here,” said Yasmin Gonzalez, a 17 year-old lesbian and the leader of the student club.
Initially, the Okeechobee High’s principal, Toni Wiersma, disallowed the club. Then, the school board said the club violated the “abstinence-only” policy. They ignored the club’s main purposes, which are to provide safe environments for students and to fight on-campus bigotry.
Now, more than a dozen students meet at an off campus restaurant on a biweekly basis. They also meet secretly on campus on a more regular basis. More than 50 students are members of the club.
Gonzalez formed the club after she collected 500 signatures to challenge a ban on same-sex couples at the school prom when she wanted to invite her girlfriend.
GSAs began forming after the passage of the 1984 federal Equal Access Act. This law, pushed by conservative Christian groups, provided access to school space for religious groups. Now, it is being used by the ACLU to make their case to allow the GSA to meet on campus.
Students form Gay Straight Alliances to challenge homophobia and transphobia on middle and high school campuses. These clubs also serve to create a supportive space for lesbian/gay/bi/trans youth and allow them to forge an organizational alliance with progressive straight youth.
Students who are suspected of being or are LGBT often are the target of extreme harassment. This harassment has often manifested in the form of brutal physical attacks and a high rate of suicide for LGBT youth.
There are more than 3,000 GSAs in middle and high schools throughout the United States. Similar cases to the one in Okeechobee have been won in other states, including Georgia, Kentucky, California, Utah and Minnesota.
”Just knowing that there are other kids like me, or who care about the same issue that I do, it makes me feel great. Less alone. That life is not hopeless,” said Kelcie Currier, a 17-year-old lesbian member of Coral Springs High School’s GSA.
”I had a student who was thrown out of his house,” said Teri Williams, former GSA advisor in Coral Springs. “He came home and found his belongings outside the house in the rain.”
Gonzalez hopes that her lawsuit makes it better for students in the future.
“You shouldn’t have to grow up feeling like you’re alone,” she said. “It was just terrible. I saw that something was wrong and I’m trying to change it.”
