Many people experiencing discrimination have encountered “victim-blaming” where the solution to the hate crime is to remove the identity being persecuted. Suppose a woman might have been told her attire “invited” sexual assault or even rape. Suppose a gay teen is told to stop “flaunting” their lifestyle choice, often by teachers and administrators in positions of trust and protection, when they report violence and daily harassment in the classroom. Suppose a recent immigrant is told that once they “learn English”, classmates will stop stealing his things and urinating on his book bag.
Only when teachers and administrators take risks to establish honest conversations that proactively support inclusion and affirm the expressive diversity of all people on campus (including students who feel the need to bully and abuse others) can we create genuinely safe spaces.
In addition to highlighting the inaction of teachers and other school staff, Daniel’s story illustrates the tendency among some school staff to ‘blame the victim’ in cases of anti-LGBT harassment, as other researchers have noted.
In Hatred in the Hallways, authors Michael Bochenek and A. Widney Brown cite situations in which LGBT students were removed from classrooms and even schools as a '“solution” to their having been harassed (while the perpetrators faced minor consequences), as well as one in which an assistant principal reportedly said of a student who had been harassed, “If he didn’t walk around telling people that he’s gay, there wouldn’t be any problems.”
Reference
Michael Bochenek and A. Widney Brown, Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in US Schools (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001), 83.
Michael Sadowski, ed., Adolescents at School: Perspectives on Youth, Identity, and Education (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015), 125.
