MEDIA CONTACT
Andy Marra
Public Relations Manager
917-941-7234
amarra@glsen.org

NEW YORK – January 22, 2013 – The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), today celebrated the kickoff of its annual No Name-Calling Week with students in thousands of schools gearing up to participate in the national event aimed at ending school-based name-calling and bullying of all kinds.

No Name-Calling Week was founded in 2004 by GLSEN and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing with more than 50 participating organizations supporting the week-long event. Key supporters of the bullying prevention program include founding sponsor Cisco with additional support provided by McDonalds and The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation.

“The frequent and widespread school participation in No Name-Calling Week can be attributed to a fundamental need to create learning communities that nurture individual happiness and success,” said Dr. Eliza Byard, GLSEN’s Executive Director. “Educators are committed to their students’ achievement, but a solid foundation built upon empathy, respect and healthy relationships must be a part of that equation. No Name-Calling Week provides educators and students with a transformative moment to not only address how words can hurt others, but to also celebrate the differences found in everyone.”

In honor of No Name-Calling Week, House Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) will introduce a congressional resolution during the week to commemorate the wide range of educational activities taking place in schools across the country aimed at ending name-calling, bullying and harassment of all kinds. Ros-Lehtinen is also a co-sponsor of the Safe Schools Improvement Act.

To support the week-long event, U.S. Olympic Soccer player Megan Rapinoe partnered with GLSEN to shoot an AOL “You’ve got…” public service announcement about the power of language. Rapinoe spoke about why people shouldn’t use biased language on the field, in school or anywhere else. GLSEN is encouraging supporters to tell us why they support Rapinoe’s message. GLSEN will be giving away a $500 Nike gift certificate, three signed Megan Rapinoe soccer balls and GLSEN merchandise to the people whose stories we share on the Changing the Game blog.

In addition, GLSEN’s long-standing organizational partner GroundSpark is providing free streaming of Let’s Get Real throughout No Name-Calling Week. GroundSpark produced the short film that examines issues that lead to bullying including differences based on race, perceived sexual orientation, learning disability, religion, sexual harassment and others.

The Creative Expressions Contest will be once again offered for schools to display their efforts to create a culture of no name-calling. Schools are invited to create school wide displays featuring the message of the week-long event and to submit a picture or video of the display for review. The winning school will receive a No Name-Calling Week prize pack containing a variety of merchandise, books and other materials from GLSEN, Simon and Schuster and Cartoon Network. All submissions are due on Friday, March 1 and may be submitted online.

Additionally, No Name-Calling Week is once again organizing the Creative Expressions Exhibit that will display students’ original artwork that express their experiences and feelings about name-calling, and their ideas to end bullying in their schools and communities. Student artwork submissions will appear in a virtual exhibit premiering in the fall. Exhibit submissions will not be reviewed for the Creative Expressions Contest. All submissions may be submitted online.

GLSEN’s No Name-Calling Week was inspired by the young adult novel “The Misfits” by James Howe, a story about four students who have each experienced name-calling and decide to run for student council on the platform of creating a “No Name Day” at school.

No Name-Calling Week is designed for use at all grade levels with schools organizing a diverse array of lesson plans, activities and other school resources for use throughout the week. In previous year evaluations, educators said they found No Name-Calling Week resources useful and that the program contributed to making their school safer.

According to “From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America,” a 2005 Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN, 47 percent of middle and high school students identified bullying, name-calling or harassment as a somewhat or very serious problem at their school. Additionally, 65 percent of middle and high school students reported being verbally or physically harassed or assaulted in the previous year because of a personal characteristic. Nearly a third of these students who were assaulted or harassed said that school staff did nothing in response when the incident was reported.

In “Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States,” a 2012 Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN, 75 percent of elementary school students reported that students at their school are called names, made fun of or bullied with at least some regularity. Most commonly this is because of students’ looks or body size, not being good at sports, how well they do at schoolwork, not conforming to traditional gender norms/roles or because other people think they are gay.

To learn more about GLSEN’s annual program, please visit the No Name-Calling Week website. You can also join the discussion on Facebook or on Twitter by following @GLSEN and using the hashtag #wordscanhurt.

About GLSEN

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Established in 1990, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. GLSEN seeks to develop school climates where difference is valued for the positive contribution it makes to creating a more vibrant and diverse community. For information on GLSEN’s research, educational resources, public policy advocacy, student organizing programs and educator training initiatives, visit www.glsen.org.

The post GLSEN’S Annual No Name-Calling Week Set to Begin in Thousands of Schools This Week appeared first on DiversityInc.

MEDIA CONTACT
Andy Marra
Public Relations Manager
917-941-7234
amarra@glsen.org

Dec 21, 2012

NEW YORK – December 21, 2012 – A Philanthropedia survey of 110 experts on LGBT equality and support named GLSEN the third best nonprofit making significant contributions on the national level, behind Lambda Legal and the ACLU. GLSEN came in third among 90 organizations that received at least one recommendation.

The leaders surveyed represented 95 organizations and included GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard. Philanthropedia, a division of GuideStar, asked the experts to recommend up to four national nonprofits.

“This is a tremendous honor to be recognized by leaders in the LGBT community as one of the top nonprofits working on LGBT equality and support,” Byard said. “Since our founding, GLSEN has committed to documenting the bias and victimization facing LGBT youth in schools and creating credible, impactful and evidence-based programs that will have a real and lasting impact. We are also fortunate to have a dedicated volunteer leadership, committed staff and engaged constituency that have driven our success for more than 20 years. We would not be who we are today without them.”

Philanthropedia, a division of Guidestar, strives to improve nonprofit effectiveness by directing money to and facilitating discussion about expert-recommended, high-impact nonprofits.

Philanthropedia provided a selection of quotes about GLSEN’s work. Highlights include:

“The work that GLSEN does on safe school environment for LGBT youth has spurred a movement to address bullying and discrimination in public schools. This work is groundbreaking and based on unique and ongoing research!” “GLSEN has transformed the way teachers are prepared and schools educate around LGBT young people and issues.”

“GLSEN has been highly effective at ‘mainstreaming’ LGBT issues within the education world so that safe schools for LGBT students is now a major agenda item for these communities.”

“GLSEN runs programs nationwide that maintain grassroots efforts in schools. Their training helps create safe spaces, give LGBT kids protection from bigotry, and helps these kids and their allies provide education in their communities.”

“GLSEN has done an incredible job of highlighting the real challenges that LGBT youth face in schools. Their school climate surveys provide the only data about the experiences of LGBT youth at school, and their research shows both the need for, and the impact of, safe schools laws, supportive teachers, and school groups for LGBT youth. GLSEN has brought the issue of harassment and bullying in schools for LGBT youth to a larger, national audience.”

“GLSEN’s national school climate survey is an invaluable statistical source for school safety efforts and is a guaranteed trigger for media and academic attention each year. It provides useful information for policy makers, educators, parents, and the LGBT youth community.”

ABOUT GLSEN
GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Established in 1990, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. GLSEN seeks to develop school climates where difference is valued for the positive contribution it makes to creating a more vibrant and diverse community. For information on GLSEN’s research, educational resources, public policy advocacy, student organizing programs and educator training initiatives, visit www.glsen.org.

The post Experts on LGBT Equality Name GLSEN Top 3 National LGBT Nonprofit appeared first on DiversityInc.

The six CEOs and eight senior executives at our event demonstrated how their personal passion and commitment to diversity have become a critical factor in making strategic business decisions. In many cases, this helped gain traction within senior leadership and generated measurable results in workforce diversity, while sometimes improving market share.

The two-day event featured two panels with six chief diversity officers—one focused on best practices for executive diversity councils and the other on using compensation to drive diversity-management results. Additionally, DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel presented exclusive advice on what companies need to do to improve their DiversityInc Top 50 rank.

Watch all the presentations from this event via the players below or view our YouTube playlist. Videos of all the speakers will be posted throughout the day.

Also, be sure to save the date for our upcoming 2013 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity Announcement Dinner, April 23–24, 2013.

How New York City Drives Diversity Results
R. Fenimore Fisher, Deputy Commissioner, Chief Diversity & EEO Officer, City of New York
How does the City of New York drive diversity metrics and results? Find out from a world-class diversity expert.

Diversity in the Workplace: Leadership Counts
Jorge Benitez, Managing Director – North America, Chief Executive – United States, Accenture
This CEO really values work/life issues. He tells us how he includes spouses and encourages family priorities.

Panel: Best Practices on Executive Diversity Councils
Debbie Storey, AT&T; Rhonda Crichlow, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Michelle Lee, Wells Fargo 
Three companies with the best practices—and results—on diversity councils talk about CEOs chairing the councils, setting goals and accountability.

Building a Strong Diversity Brand
John Bryant, President and CEO, Kellogg
The CEO of Kellogg tells us why his company has invested so much over the last two years in its diversity-management efforts.

Workplace Diversity: The Personal Connection in Leadership
Forest T. Harper, CEO, INROADS 
The son of migrant workers, who went on to be a top Pfizer executive, talks about how INROADS helps Black and Latino college students become corporate leaders. Click here to download the presentation slides.

Corporate Diversity at the Top: Q&A With Luke Visconti
Steve Howe, Area Managing Partner – Americas, Ernst & Young
The U.S. head of Ernst & Young discusses how corporate values drive business decisions at his firm

Diversity & Inclusion: Accountability & Your Business Future
Thomas F. Zenty III, CEO, University Hospitals
The CEO of this Cleveland hospital system tells us how outreach to Blacks and Latinos is driving hospital growth.

Workplace Diversity: Using Leadership to Save Lives & Talent by Creating Inclusive Workplaces
Dr. Eliza Byard, Executive Director, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network)
The head of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) tells you about young lives saved through the help of corporations like yours.

Panel on Diversity Metrics: Using Compensation to Drive Results
Maruiel Perkins-Chavis, Marriott International; Joy Fitzgerald, Rockwell Collins; Chad Johnson, Sodexo
Three companies with the most effective diversity metrics tell you what’s on their diversity scorecards and how they link goals to compensation.

Corporate Diversity: A Personal Story of Why Corporate Values Matter
Michelle Lee, Executive Vice President and Northeast Regional President, Wells Fargo
This exec shares her remarkable story of how and why she became a banker and the challenges she faced as the only young, Black woman in her management-training program.

DiversityInc Benchmarking: Tips on How to Move Up on the DiversityInc Top 50 List
Barbara Frankel, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor, DiversityInc
See our tips on the best ways to answer questions on The 2013 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity survey. Click here to download the presentation slides.

The post 8 CEOs Prove the Intersection of Diversity, Engagement & Innovation appeared first on DiversityInc.

PricewaterhouseCoopers executive Stephanie Peel’s history is a corporate America coming-out success story. When she came out professionally more than a dozen years ago, she was welcomed by her colleagues. “I came out personally in 1997 and came out professionally in 1999. Fortunately, I never heard anything not positive,” says Peel.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is No. 1 on The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list and No. 6 on the Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees. Peel serves on the company’s GLBT Partner Advisory Board, which consists of 11 leaders in the firm who are LGBT and provides guidance to the management committee to help further advance initiatives and activities.

“I often tell people who ask me about this [that] it’s not just about what you can’t say or shouldn’t say, because sometimes I find that colleagues feel stymied in that they shouldn’t say anything at all. There is a lot of room for the things you can say to give clues to people that you are inclusive and culturally sensitive,” warns Peel.

Watch this video from Out & Equal Workplace Project for more on how coming out can enhance employee engagement:

Things NOT to Say to Your LGBT Colleagues

Here’s what GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), the Out & Equal Workplace Project, and Peel suggest:

No. 1: “I suspected you were gay.”
Although it is a common response, it’s insensitive and plays into stereotypes.

No. 2: “I’m sorry.”
Why should you apologize for a colleague’s orientation? This implies judgment and can make the situation more difficult. Would you apologize for a person’s ethnicity or gender?

No. 3: “Why did you tell me that?”
It’s important for people to bring their “whole selves” to work, and coming out of the closet is certainly a part of who one is. “The notion of leaving a big part of your self at home and walking into work is like walking around with two types of shoes on,” says Selisse Berry, founding executive director of Out & Equal, an advocacy organization that provides services to companies, human-resource professionals, employee-resource groups and individuals.

No. 4: “Which bathroom do you use?”
Transgender people often are asked what gender they are. Such questions are inappropriate, warns Out & Equal. It is important to remember that gender identity is becoming an increasingly sensitive subject.

No. 5: “We are not close enough for you to share that information with me.”
Not all employees are interested in their coworkers’ personal lives. If you feel a colleague may have shared too much information, you can simply say, “Thank you for telling me that,” says Peel.

No. 6: Referring to coworkers as “she-male.”
There has been a lot of uproar these days over this phrase. Transgender employees often are the brunt of culturally insensitive jokes and comments.

No. 7: “What do you like to do in bed?”
Sexual questions and comments are always off-limits. Not only do you run the risk of offending a colleague, you are also teetering the line of sexual harassment. It’s important not to be confused between trying to understand someone’s personal life and inappropriate sexual harassment, warns Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Arcus Foundation and founder of GLSEN.

The post 7 Things NEVER to Say to LGBT Coworkers appeared first on DiversityInc.

My colleagues and I at GLSEN have been faced with a similar question ever since we opened our doors in 1990 to create educational environments where every member of every school community is valued and respected, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. How can we identify and support talented young leaders in order to advance our common goal?

Our mandate is to improve the school experience for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students despite the many inclement conditions that can impact their ability to learn and succeed. Since our founding, GLSEN has served as a resource for schools, equipping them to be a safe space for LGBT students by preparing educators to teach the fundamentals, including respect for all. Our goal is to make sure that our nation’s youth are set up for success from the very moment a student enters kindergarten until they graduate from high school and set off to pursue their own hopes and dreams. The end result is a new generation of future leaders—LGBT-identified or otherwise—ready to address the issues of their time.

Yet sadly, LGBT students have shouldered the burden of making sure they can learn and grow despite being at heightened risk of facing incidents of victimization and hostility. A majority of LGBT students in the country have reported experiences of hearing homophobic remarks or even being physically harassed in school simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. And through more than a decade of research, we know that when an LGBT student feels unsafe in school, they are more likely to skip class, perform poorer in school and say they are less likely to pursue post-secondary education. Instead of worrying about a down economy, GLSEN has been confronted with the disparity in educational opportunities for LGBT students and their allies.

Student leaders were among the brave trailblazers who founded GLSEN, and student leadership has always been at the core of the programs and advocacy designed to address this disparity. Ten years ago, GLSEN decided to invest in supporting student-leadership development in and of itself, and we established a series of student-leadership programs designed to support student-driven efforts that would ensure schools were safe and free from the harmful disruptions of anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment. In doing so, we believed the very students experiencing these incidents of victimization would be empowered to not only create change in their schools but also transform their own lives into something more hopeful.

One of the first students that GLSEN partnered with was Nathan from Michigan. Nathan was assaulted in school during his freshman year because he was perceived to be gay. And Nathan wanted to make sure LGBT students and straight allies—like himself—would not have to go through what he did. Nathan decided to join GLSEN as a student organizer where he and dozens of other LGBT and allied students from across the country received skills-building training, resources and individualized support throughout the year to make an impact in their school and communities. In turn, Nathan coordinated GLSEN’s Day of Silence in his community, helping to organize nearly 400 student participants from six high schools and two colleges to raise awareness about anti-LGBT behavior in school. He even went on to found his high school’s gay-straight alliance to support LGBT and allied students, and he lobbied the board of education to include protections for LGBT students within district policies.

Fast forward to the present and I can’t begin to share all of Nathan’s achievements. This remarkable young man graduated from high school and studied public policy at the University of Michigan. Soon after, he decided to put his education and community involvement to work by successfully running for a seat on East Lansing’s city council. And it’s worth noting that Nathan remained actively engaged with GLSEN’s work by serving on our national board of directors.

Nathan’s story isn’t a fluke. In fact, it has become an increasingly common and gratifying experience for me to hear of more students involved with our safe-schools work to excel in the classroom and accomplish tremendous things at such an incredibly young age. And research has shown that GLSEN’s student programs help LGBT and ally youth learn vital leadership skills and increase their engagement in community organizing and activism.

Take, for example, Jeremy, who is a current GLSEN student leader and high-school sophomore in Fargo, N.D. Jeremy recently traveled to Washington, D.C., where he secured Sen. Kent Conrad’s support for the federal Safe Schools Improvement Act. Or I can point to GLSEN student leader Tiffani from Arlington, Va., who recently met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to share how the U.S. Department of Education could better serve LGBT students experiencing bullying and harassment in school. These are just a couple of the growing examples of student leadership that GLSEN and our 36 local chapters across the country continue to cultivate and nurture.

GLSEN understands the many benefits of cultivating young leadership while encouraging their academic potential to succeed. And our perspective on how student leadership can improve school climate mirrors a similar understanding on talent management found within the corporate workplace. In order to maximize business performance, corporations must invest in leadership- and talent-development opportunities for their workforce. For GLSEN, we empower LGBT youth and their allies with tools and support to create a safer school climate where every student is able to succeed. And we know these leadership skills and experiences follow a student well beyond school and into the workplace when they successfully apply for their first job and their career begins to unfold.

The student-leadership model that GLSEN continues to build upon demonstrates how we can successfully address systemic challenges like anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in school. But it has also shown its astonishing value in transforming the lives of young people everywhere.

I remain in touch with Nathan, but I now receive a growing amount of emails from former students filled with news about their latest achievements at college or work. When I read these heartwarming notes, I am reminded that they and other young adults will be the next dynamic leaders in business, politics, education, media and social entrepreneurship. And I can say with confidence that our world will be in capable hands when the next generation is ready to lead.

By Dr. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN. DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel is a member of the GLSEN National Board of Directors.

The post Where’s the Pipeline of LGBT Talent? Why We Need to Support Gay Youth appeared first on DiversityInc.

Diversity and inclusion cannot exist in a culture that allows bullying in any way. Bullying starts young–examples of bullying in schools with horrific results, especially suicides, are in the news every day. If bullies are left unchecked when they’re young, they grow up to be bullies in the workplace, which undermines diversity management’s impact.

Bullying in Schools

In all societies, people in underrepresented groups are the traditional victims of bullies. And it starts young. GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network)’s National School Climate study has found that 61 percent of students feel unsafe at school because of their orientation, 39.9 percent because of gender identity, 16.4 percent because of religion, 9.8 percent because of gender, 7.6 percent because of race/ethnicity, and 5.3 percent because of disability.

The impact of school bullying was shown in the recent documentary “Bully.” The impact on youth, their families and the loss of potential talent is devastating.

For resources to stop bullying in schools, visit GLSEN, stopbullying.gov, National Crime Prevention Council, End to Cyber Bullying Organization and Lady Gaga’s recently launched Born This Way Foundation.

Workplace-Diversity Implications 

When bullies go unchecked, they grow up to be bullies. They may hide it during the job interview and rise to leadership roles.

But they will continue to target and bully people, most frequently those in underrepresented groups. And instead of fostering an atmosphere where people can bring their whole selves to work and foster innovation, your culture will become one where engagement and retention are seriously undermined.

What You Can Do 

A strong diversity and inclusion strategy will give you safeguards to find and address bullying in the workplace, but you must ensure these practices are available consistently across your organization. Read Diversity & Inclusion Means ‘You Can’t Afford to Be Dismissing People’s Ideas’ to learn how this CEO’s commitment to diversity and inclusion increased innovation at Ameren.

• Clearly State and Communicate Values: Mission statements and consistent values that are inclusive of every group must be visibly present on the website and in other prominent communications. Most importantly, they must come from the CEO and be supported by senior leaders. Read Ask the White Guy: Decision Making, Clarity of Values & What to Do When It Goes Horribly Wrong.
  
• Resource Groups: Your resource groups are your first and best line of defense. Well-developed groups, with the ability to regularly communicate with senior executives, including the CEO, can tell you what’s going on and help create culturally competent solutions.  Senior executives who sponsor groups outside of their own demographics often become more inclusive leaders. Watch Diversity Web Seminar: Resource Groups.
• Diversity Training: Mandatory diversity training that goes beyond compliance and addresses specific cultural-competence education is vital, especially for those who don’t “get” diversity and inclusion and may be bullies. It’s important to follow up and measure the success of training to make sure you have the right programs in place. Read Do White Men Really Need Diversity Outreach?
  
• Mentoring: Cross-cultural mentoring allows individuals to get to know people from underrepresented groups and to “walk in another person’s shoes.” The bidirectional aspect of mentoring, especially for white, male executives, can reduce bullying through cultural education. Read Cross-Cultural Mentoring: How IBM, E&Y & Kraft Increase Diversity in Management.
• Legal/HR Repercussions: If despite all your diversity-management efforts, instances of bullying occur, it is vital to address them quickly and severely. Understand what is legal and what is not, and work with your HR department to ensure nothing is being ignored. DiversityInc is holding a one-day workshop Sept. 13 on Managing Relationships Between HR & Diversity Departments, and bullying will be a major topic.

For more resources on diversity and inclusion awareness, go to DiversityInc.com/diversity-facts.

–Barbara Frankel

The post Diversity & Inclusion Means Zero Tolerance for Bullying appeared first on DiversityInc.

By Dr. Eliza Byard

Dr. Byard is the executive director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.

As we head into this long weekend in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the family of Robert Champion is mourning his death and suing those they hold responsible for their wrongful loss. Champion was a drum major for Florida A&M’s Marching 100, who died in the wake of a hazing ritual on a band bus on Nov. 19, 2011. Friends and family say Champion was gay, and GLSEN’s great partner the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) is calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether his death was a hate crime. The emergence of this story into national prominence on the eve of Dr. King’s holiday seems tragically inevitable—although troublingly overdue.

Dr. King’s very last sermon, delivered in 1968, was a meditation on “the Drum Major Instinct”: a desire to lead, to be first, to be praised and to make a mark on the world. (You can find the full text of this sermon here [along with the audio file, if you really want to give yourself goose bumps].) Dr. King argued that we all have this instinct, which can be rightfully condemned when it leads to destructive, selfish behavior. But it is a natural instinct, Dr. King went on, present in everyone, that can be the source of great change and true greatness when it is harnessed through service and love. Contemplating his own legacy in the sermon’s conclusion (eerily close to the hour of his own assassination), Dr. King said, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.”

Robert Champion was, in fact, an actual drum major in one of the celebrated marching bands of the HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities). Friends and family say that he was a crusader against the hazing that is such a central and dangerous part of the marching-band experience at HBCUs. His own success as a leader within the band was a testament to the possibility that one could rise through the ranks without submitting to the degrading rituals invented by band leaders to test emerging candidates. Champion was, apparently, in line to become head drum major for the Marching 100. And he was gay. Today, a painful set of inquiries seek to determine what role each of these factors played in the intense beating that led to his death.

Champion sought to be a leader and to lead the way to a more just system within the band by resisting violent and artificial rituals. A drum major for justice. A central purpose of our work at GLSEN from the beginning—and a pillar of our current strategic plan—is to support emerging student leaders and to ensure that leadership opportunities throughout the K–12 school years are open to all students, whether they are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender. And we seek to break the cycle of learned hatred and violence directed at LGBT people that some of Champion’s fellow students may have channeled into the beating that led to his death. Each year, we meet and support a new group of emerging Drum Majors for Justice who decide to channel their instinct into GSA leadership or other acts of brave service, some as simple as staying silent on the Day of Silence or speaking out during Ally Week or expressing their aspirations for a better future through artistic expression during No Name-Calling Week.

Read “Safe LGBT Spaces: What Schools Can Learn From Employee-Resource Groups” for more on increasing inclusion for LGBT in schools.

Before you head off for the weekend, take a moment to sign NBJC’s petition (at www.nbjc.org) so that the facts regarding Robert Champion’s will come to light. And take a moment to reflect on the work and leadership of the remarkable students whose efforts we support, and whose work is going to change the world.

Read other accounts on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Before MLK, None of My Accomplishments Would Have Been Possible
DiversityInc’s Denyse Leslie, senior vice president of consulting, draws a parallel between Dr. King’s firsts (first arrest, first book published, first Black man to win the Nobel Peace Prize) and the firsts of Blacks still alive (or recently deceased) as they live out Dr. King’s vision.

Taking Risks for Your Brothers: The Power of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Words
Human-rights activist Raymond Brown learned about the need for humanity from Dr. King.

How Has Dr. King’s Legacy Changed Lives?
While Hurricane Irene hit during the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial dedication, R. Fenimore Fisher reflected on how Dr. King’s actions changed the law that changed society.

What Dr. King Really Meant: The Obligation That Benefits Everyone
Why is the business case for diversity a reality and not just a theory? It is directly due to Dr. King and the civil-rights era, explains DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti.

For more on Black History and the civil-rights movement, read “Discover America′s Black History” and “Re-Centering the History in Black History.”

The post Civil-Rights Progress: Helping LGBT Youth appeared first on DiversityInc.

When I began my work at GLSEN 10 years ago, I had no idea that I would have a courtside seat for the emergence of one of the most important new forces in workplace diversity and corporate philanthropy: the resource group. In corporate workplaces, it is now expected that ERGs will be included in any diversity and inclusion strategy. Read Effective Uses of Employee Resource Groups and Why Resource Groups Are Business-Resource Groups for best practices.

During that same period, I have also witnessed the explosion of activism among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, and the proliferation of student clubs known as gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in high schools and even some middle schools nationwide. GLSEN partners with amazing student leaders from all across the country, supports the formation of GSAs and maintains contact with a national network of thousands of these student clubs.

Over time, resource groups have demonstrated their value for increasing employee satisfaction and connection to their workplace, particularly when there is strong and visible C-suite support.  Affinity groups for LGBT employees and their allies are especially critical sources of support for those who face an entrenched—and sometimes violent—form of social prejudice. By supporting LGBT-specific ERGs, corporations and their most senior leaders convey a particularly powerful message about the importance of diversity to the entire organization. Read more on the best practices for the engagement of LGBT employees.

The same is true for the interaction of school administrations with students who want to form GSAs to help make their schools more welcoming places for LGBT students. Take, for example, the experience of Richard Walsh, a former GLSEN Student Ambassador and current college student. Richard came out at an early age and faced relentless bullying. When he reached high school, Richard said, “I made the decision to stand up … I founded my school’s gay-straight alliance. It made my school community aware of the experiences that students like me endured on a regular basis. I soon noticed a difference in [my school’s] climate: more students and school staff intervened when incidents of bullying took place, a forum for discussion opened up and people no longer worried about their own sexual orientation or gender identity being called into question. They were more likely to speak out about harassment against their classmates.”

Richard and other club members began proactive efforts to change their school for the better. Members of the high-school administration had a simple but powerfully important response. They said yes.

Compare that to the experience of another openly gay student named Zach. This past October, Zach was brutally assaulted by a classmate simply because of his sexual orientation. Students watched the incident occur and did nothing to intervene. When GLSEN met with Zach and his family and offered support to students and administrators in the district, we learned that students at Zach’s school were denied the opportunity to start a GSA. Clearly, that decision by school administrators sent exactly the wrong message to the student body and deprived them of a critical source of support.

The benefits of GSAs are confirmed by more than anecdote. GLSEN’s 2009 National School Climate Survey, a biennial survey first launched in 1999 to document the school experiences of LGBT students nationally, found that LGBT students with a GSA were less likely to feel unsafe in school, experienced less victimization, were more able to identify supportive educators and felt more connected to the school community than students who did not have access to such a club. The study also found that the presence of GSAs and other forms of in-school support contributed to higher grade-point averages among students and a greater likelihood that students would plan to graduate and go on to college.

For LGBT students and their allies, GSAs provide invaluable peer support, promote safer school climates and encourage an overall feeling of inclusion within a school community. I am sure that those of you who have experienced the ERG revolution in the corporate workplace can identify many ways in which ERGs have had a similar impact on your individual experience.

But individual experience is not the only thing that has been transformed by GSAs and ERGs. These groups have also started to change the world by organizing individual energy for the greater good. For GSAs, this takes the form of outreach to peers with events like GLSEN’s Ally Week and Day of Silence, designed to promote positive change in schools, or work in coalition to bring the resources of the GSA to bear on the concerns of other student affinity groups.

Resource-group members—whatever characteristic brings them together—are similarly involved in a remarkable effort to transform workplace experience for themselves and others. They also prompt greater engagement by their employers in the issues and causes that they care about most. Indeed, corporate support—whether through resource-group volunteerism or resource-group-inspired corporate sponsorship—has contributed substantially to efforts to improve school climate for LGBT youth. Read about the Pride resource group at HP in The Business Benefits of Employee-Resource Groups.

One transformative movement supports another. One generation encourages another and is in turn inspired to do more itself. From where I sit, that definitely looks like a recipe for lasting change. 

Byard is the executive director of GLSEN. DiversityInc Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel is a member of the GLSEN National Board of Directors.

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