When ignored, such demeaning and brutal harassment incidents can jeopardize students' academic achievement and undermine their physical and mental well-being. Such incidents can also provoke retaliatory violence, damage a school's reputation, and exacerbate community conflicts. According to the new guidebook, creating a safe school climate in which all students feel welcome is the most effective way of protecting students from harassment and hate crimes. This message has been distributed as a free, nonprofit informational service, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Please do not publish, or post in a public place on the Internet, copyrighted material without permission and attribution.
Press releases are fine to reprint.
Forwarding of this material should not necessarily be construed as an endorsement of the content. For many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, going to school can be a daily hell filled with hate-based incidents including being spat and urinated upon, slammed against lockers, experiencing mock or real rapes, and having weapons drawn on them. The Guide includes sections on Developing Anti-Harassment Policies, Identifying and Responding to Incidents of Harassment, Grievance Procedures, and Creating a Climate that Appreciates Diversity. To make it easy for schools to use the manual, templates have been included for school policies, protocols, guidelines for determining hate motivation, and sample incident reports. Local and national government and non-governmental resources and technical assistance are included in an appendix.