NOW - NEW YORK STATE SUPPORT MEMO
Dignity for All Students Act
A3661-A (O'Donnell) S1987 (Duane)
|
Search Site With  |
|
|
|
March 2009
The National Organization for Women-New York State strongly supports the Dignity for All Students Act, an education law which will prohibit discrimination and harassment against students, administrators, and staff in public schools on the basis of actual or perceived race, national origin, ethnic group, religion, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender, or sex in any activity occurring on school grounds and in any actability conducted by the education institution or its agents. The California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) found that of the thirty-seven percent of middle/high school students who experienced harassment, seventy-five percent reported it being bias-related.
Harassment based upon bias is a significant obstacle to learning. Discriminatory threats of verbal or physical harassment create an environment not conducive to teaching, learning, growing, and developing. According to the CHKS, bias-harassed students are 1.5 times more likely to receive grades of C or below than are non-harassed students. The Dignity for All Students Act will establish statutes that will create an atmosphere in which scholarship is paramount and distractions from education are minimized.
Bias-motivated harassment directly results in high-risk behaviors such as absenteeism, drug use, alcohol abuse, and even suicide. CHKS reports that substance abuse is twice as high in bias-related harassed students compared to those who are not harassed. Additionally, California Safe Schools Coalition Study (2004) found that bias-related abuse drove fifty-five percent of harassment victims into depression and feelings of hopelessness, with almost half of them having seriously considered suicide.
Public schools should be safe environments in which students are nurtured and experience personal growth, and should not foster an environment so antagonistic that it drives children or teens to participate in such extreme and dangerous activities. Bias-related harassment has the potential to affect all of the student body, not only the victims of harassment. CHKS found that harassed students were about three times more likely to carry a weapon on school property than were their non-harassed peers, 14-19% as compared to 5%. In addition, bias-related harassment victims were two to four times more likely to experience violent victimization than non-harassed middle/high schoolers.
Currently, New York State has no comprehensive prohibition of harassment based on bias-motivated discrimination in primary or secondary public schools. Other states, including California Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Connecticut, have statutes or administrative codes that require these protections in public schools.
The Dignity for All Students Act will ensure that schools are a neutral ground where people of different beliefs and backgrounds can reach their full academic and personal potentials. This much needed legislation will make certain that no student is so preoccupied by the fear of harassment and discrimination that she/he is unable to receive a meaningful education. This bill also gives guidance to teachers as to how to intervene when they witness such harassment taking place.
NOW-NYS, Inc. urges New York State legislators to show their support and concern for students’ welfare by immediately passing this important piece of legislation.
Marcia A. Pappas, President
|
