Politics
Polis reintroduces bill to protect LGBT students
Student Non-Discrimination Act has bi-partisan support
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) has reintroduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), a former chair of the Colorado State Board of Education, announced during a conference call with reporters his plans to reintroduce the Student Non-Discrimination Act in the U.S. House.
“We need to protect kids at school regardless of what adults think about the different ways that people live their lives,” Polis said. “Our schools need to be a safe place where everybody can go to learn; nobody should be forced to drop out or not attend school for fear. Education is the right of every student, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Modeled after Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, SNDA establishes LGBT students as a protected class and prohibits schools from discriminating against any student based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, including by allowing bullying against them. According to the LGBT Equality Caucus, the language in the new bill is the same as it has been in previous years.
The bill has bipartisan support right off the bat.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a former Florida certified teacher and is known as the most pro-LGBT Republican in the U.S. House, is among the original co-sponsors of SNDA.
“There are currently no protections for federal law against this discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity, so the federal law is failing LGBT students and this is an injustice that needs to be corrected,” Ros-Lehtinen said.
Ros-Lehtinen added she hopes that “every legislator — whether they’re Democrat or Republican” can look at the legislation “in a sensible way” and realize that LGBT students should be a protected class against discrimination.
Polis said each of the six openly LGB members of Congress — himself, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.) — are among the co-sponsors of the legislation. Polis also identified House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as an original co-sponsor.
Joining the lawmakers on the conference call was a student and a parent of a student who say they’ve experienced discrimination in schools based on LGBT status.
Becky Collins talked about how her son Zach Collins was bullied for being gay while attending school in Chillicothe, Ohio.
“I have called the school several times while he was in grade school, then middle school came — and it’s more hurtful words, it’s shoving him into the locker, it’s touching him inappropriately,” Collins said. “My son, he just kind of took it with a grain of salt, even though I kept calling, kept calling. They said, ‘We’ll talk to him. We’ll talk to him.’ And still nothing changed for my son.”
After this bullying led to her son being beaten in the classroom two years ago, Collins said she had to involve the local sheriff because the school wouldn’t take action. Instead, the school principal urged her son to be the one to make the change so that he would no longer be targeted.
“The principal looks at my son and says, ‘I don’t have any other problem with any other student but you. What can we do to change you?'” Collins said. “They wanted my son to change, not the children that are torturing him daily, shoving him into walls and lockers and touching him in places that you shouldn’t touch another person.”
Also on the call was Bayli Silberstein, a bisexual eighth grade student from Florida who spoke about the difficulties she’s facing in her attempts to create a Gay-Straight Alliance to address the bullying that she and her friends face.
“My friends and I tried to start one last year, and our principal said ‘no,'” Silberstein said. “But they already had some clubs; they had a Christian club and they had a bullying club. So I was a little confused, and I wanted to try again. And the principal said we had to submit it to the school board. They made a really big deal out of it, and tried to cancel all extracurricular clubs for every middle school in the county.”
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, students already have the right to form GSAs under the Equal Access Act, a 1984 law that compels secondary schools to provide equal access to extracurricular clubs.
Ellen Kahn, director of the Human Rights Campaign Family Project, offered statistics demonstrating the degree of bullying that LGBT students face in schools.
According to an HRC survey cited by Kahn, 64 percent of LGBT teens — compared to 47 percent of non-LGBT teens — never participate in afterschool activities out of fear of discrimination or bullying. She also said LGBT youth are twice as likely as their non-LGBT peers to experience to bullying or harassment in school.
“While most of the bullying and exclusion is the perpetuated by their peers, we also know that adults who work in our schools — from bus drivers, to teachers — engage in anti-LGBT behavior and discrimination as well,” Kahn said.
Passage of SNDA — as with any pro-LGBT bill — will be difficult along as a Republican majority controls the House, but Polis nonetheless saw an opportunity for passage if Congress takes up the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
“There’s dozens, if not hundreds, of education bills and certainly a number of others that I co-sponsor that we hope to include in ESEA reauthorization,” Polis said. “We don’t know the overall likelihood of ESEA reauthorization, but it certainly remains one of my top priorities, and of course, including SNDA as part of that is critical.”
Last year, LGBT groups urged the Senate Education Labor and Pensions Committee to include SNDA when it marked up ESEA reauthorization. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who has sponsored SNDA in the Senate, gave an impassioned speech against anti-gay bullying before the committee, but withdrew the measure as an amendment. After the larger vehicle was reported out of committee, it didn’t go anywhere and ultimately died in the Senate.
Polis acknowledged another more challenging route for the bill is passage of the measure as a standalone bill through a markup process in the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The Colorado said he intends to speak with Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) about the legislation to pursue this path, but the more co-sponsors would build pressure on him to markup the bill.
LGBT groups praised SNDA upon Polis reintroduction of the bill as means to ensure LGBT youth are protected from discrimination and harassment while attending school.
Ian Thompson, legislative representative of the ACLU, was among those who hailed the bill and called it “the single most important step” that Congress could take to help LGBT students.
“Though the pace of positive progress on LGBT rights over the past several years has been dizzying, there is shockingly no federal law that explicitly protects LGBT students from discrimination and harassment in our nation’s public schools,” Thompson said. “We urge Congress to pass this bipartisan legislation and in doing so affirm that every student deserves the opportunity to attend school and learn without fear.”
On the same day that Polis introduced SNDA, a group of more than 82 advocacy organizations sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to sign on in support of the legislation.
“The Student Non-Discrimination Act presents us with a historic opportunity to offer critical protections to current and future generations of LGBT youth and their student allies by ensuring that discrimination against and harassment of students on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity will have no place in our country’s public elementary and secondary schools,” the letter states.
Signers of the letter include LGBT groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network and Log Cabin Republicans, and other groups, such as the ACLU, the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza.
The exact timing for Senate introduction of SNDA is unknown. A Senate aide said Franken is planning on introducing the bill in the upcoming weeks.
Another bill that would address anti-gay bullying is the Safe Schools Improvement Act, which would require schools to adopt codes of conduct against bullying, including on the basis of LGBT status, and report bullying data to Department of Education Education. That legislation is sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) in the House and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in the Senate.
Following calls from LGBT advocates, the White House announced last year that President Obama had endorsed both SNDA and SSIA. Asked whether Obama still holds the position on both bills today, Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said Obama supports “the goals” of SNDA.
“We support the goals of the Student Non-Discrimination Act introduced by Congressman Polis today,” Inouye said. “We look forward to working with Congress to ensure that all students, including LGBT students, are safe and healthy and can learn in environments free from discrimination, bullying, and harassment.”
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections
In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.
The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.
Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.
“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”
Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.
“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”
“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’
Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation
California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.
The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.
“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.
The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”
“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.
“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.
Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.
Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.
“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”
Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.
“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”
The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.
“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.
The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.
“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”
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