The legal duty to protect gay and lesbian students from violence in school.

Public attention has recently focused on in schools in the United States. Media coverage of shootings in Arkansas, Oregon, and Colorado have shocked the nation. These violent incidents in the schools have demonstrated the alarming potential for these events to occur anytime in any school. To prevent this problem, there has been a call for understanding the causes of among school-age children and adolescents and a demand for action. comprehensive approach to prevention requires the schools to address physical violence, media violence, political-economic violence, cultural-racial violence, and sexual and gender (Daniels, Arredondo, & D'Andrea, 1999). Within the larger issue of sexual and gender is the problem of harassment and abuse directed against gay and lesbian students. The purposes of this article are to describe the against gay and lesbian students; demonstrate the connection between homophobia, heterosexism, and violence; examine the legal responsibility of schools to protect gay youth from harassment and abuse; and, to recommend prevention strategies to provide safe schools for gay and lesbian students. Anti-Lesbian and Gay Violence Gay and lesbian youth have been the invisible minority in our schools. Since homosexuality has historically been viewed as only an adult issue, many people in the public schools remain uninformed about the number of gay students in schools and show little interest in the concerns of these students (Treadway & Yoakam, 1992). School counselors have made general comments during training sessions that there are no gay students in their schools or have even labeled attempts to educate about gay and lesbian issues as subversive attempts by homosexuals to take over the schools. Research by Price and Telljohann (1991) described one in five school counselors as reporting that working with gay and lesbian students would not be gratifying, but 41% of the counselors in their study also reported that schools were not doing enough to help gay and lesbian students adjust to their environment. As further evidence that these students are ignored, Reed (as cited in O'Conor, 1994) stated, Not only does the group remain invisible, the existence of and problems associated with gay youth are largely denied by public school educators, particularly (p. 8). Woog (1995) described a statewide survey of Connecticut teachers and administrators in 1991 where respondents indicated that they recognized the plight of gay and lesbian students, admitted that little was being done for them, and expressed hope for interventions to assist these students. Teachers were more insistent on action, whereas administrators claimed that there were sufficient programs in place to address the needs of these students. Depending on the study, it has been reported that between 2% and 10% of the U.S. population is homosexual. Ginsberg (1998) reported using the midpoint of this range, or 6%, to indicate a national gay/lesbian population of approximately 15,000,000 which also suggests a gay and lesbian student population of 2,610,515 based on the Digest of Education Statistics (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995). Ginsberg (1998) explained: These estimates suggest that of the adolescents who attend the country's public schools about one in 20 is likely to be gay/lesbian. Thus, each time a middle or high school teacher addresses a class, she or he is likely to be addressing one or more gay/lesbian students. (p. 2) School can be a dangerous and often hostile environment for gay and lesbian youth. One reason gay and lesbian students live silent and secretive lives is that to be visible, or to have come out as a teenager, means to place oneself at risk of verbal and physical abuse. O'Conor (1994) wrote, A recent U.S. Department of Justice report states that gays and lesbians are the most frequent victims of hate crimes, and school is the primary setting for this type of violence (p. …