LEGISLATIVE MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
OF MOTION TO PETITION
THE DIGNITY FOR ALL STUDENTS ACT
A. 9491 (O’Donnell)

April 10, 2006

The Empire State Pride Agenda, New York’s statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights and political advocacy organization, supports the Dignity for All Students Act because all students must be safe in school from bullying and harassment.  New York’s schools should be harassment-free zones where students can concentrate on learning instead of fearing for their safety because of taunts and violence.

The Dignity for All Students Act prohibits harassment and discrimination in public schools, including harassment based on real or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, religious practice, sex, gender (including gender identity and expression), sexual orientation or disability.  It creates programs to foster a harassment-free environment in schools, and implements a reporting mechanism that will allow the state to compile data on the occurrences of harassment in schools.  Bias harassment is also a severe obstacle to learning, often times single-handedly robbing a student of the sound, basic public school education guaranteed by our state constitution.  Bias harassment leads to high-risk behaviors such as school absenteeism and lowered self-esteem.  For example, LGBT students are more than four times as likely as their non-gay peers to skip whole days of school out of fear, making quality learning impossible. 

Currently, New York State has no comprehensive prohibition on bias harassment and bullying in primary or secondary schools. A number of New York localities have also passed comprehensive anti-harassment measures for their public schools, including Buffalo, East Hampton, Huevelton, New York City, Rochester, Albany, Yonkers and Saratoga Springs.  At least nine other states including California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Connecticut as well as the District of Columbia have statutes or administrative codes that require these protections in public schools.  In fact, New York’s current Commissioner of Education, Richard P. Mills, promulgated such regulations when he was Commissioner of Education in Vermont. 

The Dignity for All Students Act will insure that schools are places where people of different beliefs and backgrounds can reach their full academic and personal potential.  It does not require anyone to “accept” another person’s homosexuality, religion or other characteristic; it only requires that a student not be abused because of any of these traits.  It does not limit freedom of speech or religion, since a person is still free to express a disapproval of these traits, just not in a harassing manner that substantially interferes with another student’s education.  All private schools, including parochial schools, are explicitly exempted from the law. 

The Dignity for All Students Act makes sure that no student is so preoccupied by the fear or actuality of harassment and discrimination that he or she is unable to receive a meaningful education.  It also gives guidance to teachers as to how to intervene when they witness such harassment taking place.  It is the minimum that we can require for our students, forced by law to be in school until they are of a legal age, to ensure that they are protected from violence or intimidation by classmates, teachers or administrators. Otherwise, we are sentencing our children to a cruel, dangerous environment where learning is all but impossible.