Isolating LGBT students is bad practice
19 April 2016 - Early April male student of a school in the Netherlands was taken out of his classes and taught separately "for his own protection". The student Maicke van der Belt came out in school and severely bullied by his fellow students. After strong public protests that isolating the victim rather than the perpetrators is bad practice, the principal decided to return him to his classes. The local expertise centre on LGBT issues in schools call for school guidelines on how to deal with such concrete situations.
It is out of our influence
Maicke was bullied after he came out to be gay. He said: "I did not expect my classmates to react in a negative way. In the beginning it was okay. But after some months, they began teasing, swearing, letting me stumble, that sort of thing. My school performance started to suffer." Eventually the situation escalated. Maicke was accused of gossiping by a group of girls. He got very angry and hit one of the girls. A class fight started.
In the local newspaper, the principal Ben Karstenberg admitted he hardly knew what was going on. "I don't know if students used physical violence against him. I know he was verbally attacked. It was not wise to leave him in the classroom. He is now temporarily being taught in a protected environment."
The principal went on to blame puberty for the ongoing bullying. "Adolescent behavior is not gay hate. Maicke was very honest about himself. Adolescents react like they react. They make jokes and that causes reactions. It is not true that school safety is compromised. But the school has little influence on what happens outside the school." However the student does not agree with the principal this is just pubescent behavior: "It is discrimination".
Call for schools to take responsibility
The Dutch expertise centre on sexual diversity in education EduDivers call for principals to stop denying their responsibility. Peter Dankmeijer, director of EduDivers said: "Directors and teachers often act as if hate incidents and structural bullying are unexpected and immutable natural phenomena. To blame the environment outside the school is also a popular argument to do nothing. With these arguments schools pretend that have no responsibility to maintain a safe school environment for LGBT students. This should stop. We can help school by offering good practices on how to deal with such concrete situations. But schools themselves need to show the leadership to use them."
Sources: EduDivers, Dagblad van het Noorden, Roze Golf