Fridae

Harvey Milk High School, the first-ever high school designated solely for gay and lesbian students, opens this new fall term on September 8. The high school which is an expansion of a 1984 city program consisting of two small classrooms for 50 gay students will now take in a hundred students after receiving a US$3.2 million grant from New York's Board of Education.

Named after California's first elected gay official and a member of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco who was murdered by an anti-homosexual former supervisor in 1978, the school will now hold eight classrooms on a 17,000-square-foot lot.

The once-small alternative-school program will now be a full-fledged accredited high school for GLBT youth that will provide a safe environment for youth who would otherwise receive taunts and threats in regular schools.

According to the Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States, 41.7 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth do not feel safe in their school. The Council also reports that 28 percent of gay teens drop out of high school annually, which is more than three times the national average.

The US National Mental Health Association's website reports that 69 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender youth reported experiencing some form of harassment or violence at their school and that such youths are three times more likely to attempt suicide than other youths.

"I think everybody feels that it's a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," Bloomberg said. "It lets them get an education without having to worry," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who approved the programme.

The school, believed to be the first of its kind and scope in the nation, has drawn opposition from both conservatives and civil libertarians.

New York State Conservative Party chairman Mike Long criticised the creation of the school. As quoted in the New York Post, Long asked, "Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there a gay math? This is wrong."

Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, said the school violates city anti-discrimination laws.

"They have found now a formula for discriminating - what I call 'voluntary segregation,' to give victims of discrimination their own classroom and own school," he said.

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School officials have however disputed charges of discrimination saying that the school is open to all students regardless of sexual orientation and that the school is essential to protect students who have been harassed.

While Norman Siegel, former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union feels that harassment is no reason to segregate students based on sexual orientation, David Mensah, executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a gay-rights youth advocacy group feels that GLBT students "have a right to a safe education" and should not "have to hide between classes to survive."

The group, which manages the school with the city Department of Education, also provides after-school programs such as art and music, and counselling and support services for as many as 2,000 gay and lesbian students.

Mensah said that the school's priorities are in academic success and not to push the gay agenda. He added that 95 percent of its students graduate, and 60 percent enrol in college - many of them former dropouts.

University of Wisconsin women's studies professor Mariamne Whatley said she sees the benefits as well as problems such a school could present.

"It would be nice if we could solve the problem within the regular high schools, but as a tempering measure, I think it's a good idea," Whatley said.

"Homophobia is a real issue involving real violence and until it can be fixed, this may be what has to be done."

"It sort of seems like we are letting people off the hook by creating a separate school for gay students," Whatley said.

"It's like, 'Oh, you won't change your views and treat them right? Well, we'll just remove them from the school then,' which is not right either."

But with issues such as dropping out of school, suicide, depression and physical violence a large part of the debate affecting lesbian and gay high school students, Whatley admitted that something had to be done.

While much of the criticism levelled at Harvey Milk centres on the idea that it is wrong to segregate gay youths in a separate school, New York and other major urban districts have created a multitude of programs that cater to specific groups of students. New York has a school for pregnant girls, five for immigrant students, and more than 50 for students too disabled to attend mainstream schools. There are also all-girls schools in Chicago, Harlem and Philadelphia.

Currently, at-risk gay and transgender youths in Los Angeles have a tiny one-classroom publicly funded program while in Dallas, the Walt Whitman Community School bills itself as the nation's only private high school for at-risk gay youths. The school, which was founded six years ago, is on a one-year hiatus while seeking accreditation and expansion into a residential program.