There is power in silence. But not when people – particularly those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender – are forced into it.
That is the message in this week’s Day of Silence events, which were coordinated by University of Arizona students and staff.
The three-day event begins Wednesday and will culminate Friday night with a “Breaking the Silence” event on the UA Mall. On Thursday, the campus community will hold a vigil and program to remember 15-year-old Lawrence King, an openly gay California teen who was killed in February.
“King is the focus because his death got so little press, yet his story was so dramatic,” said Katherine Beck, co-chairwoman of the event's planning committee and vice president of Students Promoting Respect for Individuality Through Example, or SPRITE.
Event coordinators are asking that people not speak or use sign language all day Friday until 5 p.m. in recognition of the silence those in the LGBT community are forced to keep. At that point, participants will be “breaking the silence” and speaking openly about their experiences, Beck said.
“The event is specifically meant to bring awareness to the silence the LGBT community and its allies are meant to keep everyday,” she said, noting that people who identify as LGBT must sometimes hide their orientation or are unable to stand up for people in the community. The same goes for allies, she said.
Beck also said those who identify as LGBT can often feel isolated. “When you can’t speak up in class when a teacher says something noninclusive you basically have no voice,” she said, adding that this does not only happen on campus. "There is difficulty expressing oneself without having to out themselves."
For 12 years, students at public schools across the nation, and an increasing number of those attending colleges and universities, celebrate Day of Silence each year, Beck said. It has become one of the largest student-led action-oriented events in the nation.
The week’s plans are:
Stephen Russell, a professor in the John and Doris School of Family and Consumer Sciences, has studied the experiences of “sexual minorities” in school settings and will speak during the memorial service to be held Thursday night.
“When LGBT people, people of color, women – when these people feel uncomfortable and unsafe, it comes back to this place of privilege that others have,” Russell said. “And for many people, that privilege is part of the majority culture.”
His work attempts to help schools and educators to become more responsive to the needs of LGBT youth and also responsive to the discrimination they face.
“Some will say, ‘Quit acting that way,’ or ‘Why are you acting in a way that attracts bullying?’ It’s what was happening in the 1960s and 1970s with race,” said Russell, who holds the Fitch Nesbitt Endowed Chair and is director of the UA's Frances McClelland Institute.
But instead of trying to change LGBT students, educators and others must change their response to such students. This requires specific anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies, teacher intervention when problems arise in the classroom and the creation and support of school clubs with LGBT and allied members, Russell said.
He also said students must have access to resources and support. School curricula should include information about people who identify as LGBT – an approach that is highly contentious, he said.
Russell's research suggests that “educational leadership makes a difference and when you do those things kids feel safe.” When such actions fail, he added, LGBT youth are prone to feel depressed and suicidal and have lower levels of academic success. “School is not their priority if safety is their priority.”
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