Subject: GLSTN GOES BACK TO SCHOOL
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 13:48:55 -0400

!!!!!GLSTN NEWS!!!!!

GLSTN
122 West 26th Street
Suite 1100
New York, NY 10001
tel: 212.727.0135
fax: 212.727.0254
email: [email-masked]
web: http://www.glstn.org/respect/

News Release
For Immediate Release
Contact:	Kevin Jennings, Executive Director 
		       Deidre Cuffee-Gray, Program Officer

      Student Leaders Kelli Peterson and Jamie Nabozny Join Greg Louganis 
in 
            Launching GLSTN's Second Annual "Back-to-School" Campaign

      Plans Made to Send Thousands of Letters on Homophobia to Schools

(August 14, 1996 New York, NY) The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers 
Network (GLSTN) released today its official Campaign materials for its 
Second Annual Back-to-School Campaign.  Leading the Campaign in 1996 will 
be student heroes Kelli Peterson and Jamie Nabozny, who will join GLSTN 
Honorary Board member Greg Louganis as spokespeople for the effort.  The 
Back-to-School Campaign, in which lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults and 
their allies write back to their former schools and to educational 
leaders demanding action to end homophobia in schools, is an annual event 
staged each September by GLSTN, the only national organization 
specifically working to end homophobia in K-12 schools.
	
"We're planning o dramatically increase the scope and impact of the 
Back-to-School Campaign this year," said Kevin Jennings, GLSTN's 
Executive Director.  "We've set a goal of sending a minimum of 5,000 
letters, and we are mapping out an aggressive strategy to reach that 
goal."  Jennings points out that all 42 local GLSTN chapters are staging 
events to involve the community in the Campaign, and that over 50,000 
households will be contacted via direct mail to generate grass-roots 
involvement.  "In addition, we've garnered significant support from both 
the mainstream education establishment as well as from the lesbian/gay 
community for the Campaign," said Jennings, citing Campaign endorsements 
by groups as varied as the National Association of Secondary School 
Principals , the National Association of Pupil Services Administrators, 
the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Parents, Families, and 
Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).  Jennings also noted a public 
education effort, featuring an advertising campaign developed by the New 
York-based Rabid Design Group that targets gay/lesbian publications and 
will also be distributed as posters for use in schools and the community. 
 "We're getting the word out in every way we can," said Jennings "that 
bigotry in our schools is wrong and needs to be ended today."

"If everyone who cared about gay youth would write one letter," said 
Jamie Nabozny, "it would save many gay youth from going through what I 
went through in high school." Nabozny attended public high school in 
Ashland, Wisconsin, where he faced four years of anti-gay abuse.  About 
the experience, Nabozny said, "I suffered through over four years of 
anti-gay violence.  In 9th grade, for example, two boys knocked me to the 
floor and urinated on me. After that, whenever I walked around a corner, 
I never knew who would be there and what they would do to me."  Having 
received no support from school administrators, Nabozny has filed the 
first-ever federal suit on anti-gay violence in schools.  Nabozny won an 
important victory in his case in early August when the U.S. 7th Circuit 
Court remanded the case to a lower court which had found against Nabozny, 
with instruction to reconsider the case as a violation of Jamie's right 
to equal protection.

Kelli Peterson, a 1996 graduate of East High School in Sat Lake City, 
Utah, grabbed national attention last winter when she founded a 
Gay-Straight Student Alliance club in her school.  Kelli was prompted by 
her own experience of harassment as a lesbian student.  "Freshman year, a 
group of girls in my gym class started teasing me, saying things like 
'You're such a queer.  You even look like a boy!'" said Peterson.  "As I 
was pulling my backpack on one day in the locker room, I was pushed to 
the ground by someone who was behind me.  When I hit the ground, they 
began kicking me and screaming at me, "Dyke!" and "Faggot!"  Kelli's 
club, based on the popular model developed by GLSTN, sought to address 
this kind of harassment.  When Utah's elected officials found that they 
could not ban the club from meeting under the Federal Equal Access Law, 
the state legislature met in special session and voted to ban all student 
clubs to prevent the GSA from having the right to meet.  "All students 
must be cared for in this place where we are forced to be," said 
Peterson, "and GLSTN's work is helping make that happen."
	
"What happened to Kelli and Jamie is more the norm that the exception," 
said Kevin Jennings, citing statistics that show that 80% of gay/lesbian 
youth feel severely isolated at school.  "It's time we did something to 
make equal opportunity a reality for our students." Jennings, a former 
high school history teacher, went on to add "Every day we make them 
pledge allegiance to 'liberty and justice for all.'  Isn't it time we 
kept our end of that bargain for lesbian and gay students?"

Note:	Reporters wishing copies of the Second Annual Back-to-School 
Campaign Press Kit, to obtain diskettes with EPS-format photos of 
Campaign Spokespeople, and/or to speak with GLSTN staff, Jamie Nabozny, 
Kelli Peterson, or local contact people should call Deidre Gray at 
212-727-0135.  

With over forty chapters, and a membership of over three thousand 
teachers, parents, and concerned citizens, The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight 
Teachers Network (GLSTN) is the largest national organization working to 
insure that schools are places where all people are respected and valued, 
regardless of sexual orientation. For more information visit our website 
at http://www.glstn.org/respect/

                 --30--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Spear
Director of Field Services
GLSTN
Teaching Respect For All
Email:   [email-masked]
Web:     http://www.glstn.org/freedom/
Phone:   212.727.0135
Fax:     212.727.0254
US Mail: 122 West 26th Street, Suite 1100
         New York, NY 10001
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