by Jessica Carreras
Former Saline School Board Trustee Marian Faupel will be running as a write-in candidate for a seat on the board. Her decision to run was spurred by last Tuesday's vote.
SALINE – Moving speeches, hundreds of supporters wearing pins reading "Six words + action = change" and the pleading eyes of numerous LGBT and allied high school students were not enough to, as they say, change the hearts and minds of the majority of the Saline School Board at their Oct. 12 meeting.
There, two hours of public comment and several presentations concluded with a 4-3 vote by the board on the issue of whether to add the words "sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression" to the district's anti-discrimination policy. The policy already includes height, weight, religion, sex, race, national origin, color and marital status as traits that cannot be used to deny students educational opportunities.
Trustees Lisa Slawson, David Medly and Board President David Friese voted in favor of the change, while Trustees Amy Cattell, Chuck Lesch, Paul Hynek and Craig Hoeft voted against it.
Most opponents of the change, both on the board and in the audience last Tuesday, claimed that their resistance stemmed from the fact that the real issue needing to be addressed was bullying, not discrimination.
Saline area schools already have a bullying policy in place, but making the change to the discrimination policy would have ensured that LGBT students could not, for example, be cut from a sports team or treated unfairly by teachers because of their perceived or actual identity or orientation.
"It's obvious that our anti-bullying policy needs to be stepped up, and we need to come together as a community and a school system to incorporate in our daily lives, the school and the community that we will have zero tolerance of bullying of any students," Trustee Cattell said just before the vote. "This is a call to change and … (to) use the policy we have in place and make a more concerted effort as a community to raise awareness about all diversity and all students."
Public opinion
Students and many supporters, however, disagreed that bullying protections were enough. Several stated that the two go hand in hand to create a supportive atmosphere for LGBT students.
Ann Arbor-based activist Jim Toy, who founded the University of Michigan LGBT student office called the Spectrum Center, told the story of Laramie, Wyo., youth Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in a brutal anti-gay hate crime in 1998. "If we had more inclusive, supportive and implemented discrimination policies," Toy told the school board, "that would go far to create a climate both local, statewide and national in which Matthew Shepard and our children dead by assault or by their own hand would be alive and well today."
Despite the fact that the issue being debated was an anti-discrimination policy, many speakers, who likened the two issues as interconnected, discussed the topic of bullying as well. Several students from Saline and other districts came forward to discuss both their friends' and their own experiences with bullying and harassment.
"When we walk down the halls holding another girl's hand, they scream remarks at us," said Anna Mayne, a senior at Ann Arbor's Pioneer High School and co-president of their gay-straight alliance, in a tear-filled testimony. "But we decided to fight and that's why we're here today – to tell you that we are people, too.
"A hundred years from now, these words for these kids at this school will mean more than you know," she continued. "These kids will feel comfortable going to school, knowing that even if they are gay, people won't throw them into a locker, call them fag; they'll know that no matter what, their teachers will be there for them and their students will be there for them."
A fair amount of speakers were former or current educators, who contended that protecting students from all types of discrimination was essential to ensuring that they received the best education possible.
"If somebody does not feel safe in your classroom, they are not learning," said Gail Wolkoff, a former Ann Arbor teacher for 26 years. "They are sitting there trying to protect themselves.
"They're not hearing what the teachers are saying, they're not hearing the homework assignments, they're not sharing, because … education is not the most important thing in their life," she said. "So they don't think when they get to college-age, 'What do I do next?' The only thing they can think of is, 'Get me out of here.'"
But all the impassioned testimony was not enough to convince several board members that the policy needed to be changed.
Next steps
Members of Spectrum, the Saline High School GSA, who first brought the issue up to the Saline School Board, promised that the fight was not over. "This is not the end of this," Spectrum leader Emma Upham told AnnArbor.com. "We are disappointed but not disheartened. We will continue until the climate is better at our school."
The failed policy change also served as a catalyst for a former trustee to run for a seat on the board in the Nov. 2 election. Marian Faupel will run as a write-in candidate against current trustee Paul Hynek and candidate Todd Carter.
Both Carter and Hynek were opposed to the anti-discrimination policy change – Hynek by vote and Carter in a speech given at the Oct. 12 meeting.
Carter proposed rephrasing all discrimination policies in the district to read, "Saline area schools will not tolerate discrimination or any form of intimidation," suggesting that "pitting group against group" was not the answer.
Faupel also addressed the board before the policy vote, talking about her experience holding a seat and dealing with affirmative action. "(Students) should be able to come here and be Chinese or Muslim or gay or straight or whatever," she said of the district. "The world expects you to let these kids develop their talent and go out into the world and contribute to the world. I just hope that tonight, you show as much leadership as these kids here.
"They should be learning it from you, not teaching it to you."
However, the board did not agree with Faupel's support, and she announced shortly after that she had decided to run for a seat.
Faupel's platform, announced on her Facebook page last week, directly addressed the anti-discrimination policy issue: "Anti-discrimination policies and anti-bullying policies are cousins. Discrimination is the withholding of opportunity from people with little power in society. Bullying is the intentional infliction of emotional distress and/or physical pain on people with little power in society. One is a subtle. One is overt. Both are cowardly and wrong."
