By Sarah Mieras
KALAMAZOO – Once a week students from high schools and colleges throughout southwest Michigan file into a small room on the campus of Western Michigan University.
Sprawled out on the floor, they strategize and organize for their participation in what has become one of, if not the largest, student-led efforts to stop anti-LGBT violence and harassment in schools: The Day of Silence Project.
Since its beginning in 1996, The Day of Silence Project, with the help of GLSEN, has grown from a protest at the University of Virginia to a national action that involves more than 100,000 students in close to 2,000 schools.
In southwest Michigan more than nine schools have combined their planning for the April 9 Day of Silence. The coalition, led by paid organizer and Western Michigan University grad student Alison Alpert, will include a rally, speak-out, march and a conference on April 12.
Elsewhere, on April 9, students around the nation will pledge to be silent throughout the school day in protest of the stifling silence that lgbt students face every day.
"The point of the Day of Silence is to make it absolutely clear to the world what homophobia is doing," said Alpert. "It is to show what the world would look like if lgbt people weren't being silenced every day."
In place of speaking, the student protesters will carry "speaking cards" that contain information about the issues lgbt students face such as harassment in the hallways, violence, and discrimination.
"The Day of Silence forces folks who don't have these issues on their radar to recognize what is happening," explained Alpert.
Just down the hall from a Day of Silence meeting, WMU LGBT Student Services employee Bonnie Benson carefully assembled a bulletin board explaining the upcoming event. Over the din of activity as student organizers mapped out plans, Benson noted that silence is a powerful tool.
"Just the word silence is such a powerful tool," she mused. "If students are silenced, no one will be aware of the harassment and violence they face every day."
To give student participants in the project a safe space to process the Day of Silence, WMU will host a rally and speak-out from 6-8 p.m. on April 9 in the University's Bernhard Center.
"We want to go from silence to the noise of our own words," Alpert said. "The rally is a space for us to come together and share with each other what has happened all day during our silence."
Last year hundreds of lgbt students and their allies attended the rally, which was noted as one of the largest in the Midwest.
To take the Day of Silence project one step further, WMU will also host a Day of Dialogue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 12. The daylong event will include student-led workshops on everything from bisexual issues and being femme-plus to starting and running a successful Gay/Straight Alliance.
The mini-conference, Alpert said, is meant to serve as a springboard for a new year of activism by the student coalition.
To learn more about The National Day of Silence Project visit www.dayofsilence.org. There you will find instructions on starting the project at your school, plus posters and stickers.
