Last week marked the Day of Silence, a nationwide initiative where students purposely remained silent all day to draw attention to the epidemic of bullying inside the classroom, particularly bullying that targets gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Amazing that while thousands of students honored the Day of Silence, two straight students in Kentucky forcibly took a lesbian student to a park, beat her up, and tried to push her off of a cliff. All because she's a lesbian.
The victim managed to escape (and managed to film the incident on her camera phone, incidentally), and the two girls have been arrested and released on $25,000 bond. But if there's anything that puts a punctuation mark on how absolutely pervasive and widespread bullying is in the classroom, it's this story.
Call it bullycide. And though the victim here didn't die (thankfully), countless others have, or committed suicide because of severe anti-gay bullying. This is why we need a Student Non-Discrimination Act.
Because no LGBT student should have to worry about whether they're going to be thrown off a cliff on their way home from school.
Rep. Jared Polis said it best when he introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act in Congress.
"Every day innocent students fall victim to relentless harassment and discrimination from teachers, staff, and fellow students based on their sexual orientation. Hatred has no place in the classroom," Rep. Polis said.
He couldn't be more right. That's why his Student Non-Discrimination Act needs to pass Congress.
Photo credit: Conspirator
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