West Virginia State Board Rejects Biased School 'Civil Rights Teams'     10/24/2002
Maine model of program shows strong pro-homosexual bias
By Peter J. LaBarbera

Maine model of program shows strong pro-homosexual bias

With Love, From West Virginia

The West Virginia State Board of Education voted 6-0 on October 17 to put a school-based "civil rights team project" on hold after being besieged by parents who complained that it promotes homosexuality and "gay" activist groups.

Under the West Virginia program, launched in 1999, and a model version in Maine, student "civil rights teams" were recruited to operate in public middle and high schools. They were encouraged to report back to the Attorney General’s Office purported "hate" incidents, including "name calling and bullying." The programs allegedly promote tolerance and understanding with regard to a number of criteria, including race, religion and "sexual orientation." Students receive training on various issues, including "homophobia."

Critics of the program, led by Kevin McCoy of the American Family Association of West Virginia, say the "Civil Rights Team Project" turns students into "snitches," reminiscent of Nazi "brownshirts." They note that the project was never approved by the state school board but was launched by the attorney general’s office, which oversees the program.

Paul Sheridan, senior assistant to the West Virginia attorney general in the civil rights division, has sought to portray the "civil rights team" program as impartial and designed solely to stop bullying and protect all students. But Sheridan was embarrassed in an appearance October 16 opposite McCoy on the Fox Network’s The O’Reilly Factor. On the program, the night before the vote, McCoy read on air the verbatim "strategies" designed to change student attitudes about homosexuality — all listed in the program’s faculty training manual, such as:

• "Change language that assumes everyone is or should be heterosexual (use ‘partner’ rather than girl/boyfriend, ‘permanent relationship’ rather than marriage");
• [Urge students to:] "Wear a LesBiGay positive button or T-shirt occasionally, e.g., ‘Straight but not narrow’ [denigrating defenders of traditional sexual morality as narrow-minded] or ‘I support gay & lesbian rights’ or a pink triangle";
• "Make your language inclusive, e.g., use partner, lover, significant other, family unit, etc., in place or in addition to boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, etc. — in conversations and in papers, memos, etc.

Sheridan dodged questions about the biased nature of the state’s Civil Rights Team Project materials and accused McCoy of distorting the program. He told host Bill O’Reilly that the program in West Virginia does not promote homosexuality. But O’Reilly asked Sheridan to explain the above pro-"gay" advocacy, and said such recommendations are "steering" students toward homosexuality.

"This stuff here — that's not good for the state, I don't think," O’Reilly said, dismissing Sheridan’s claim that McCoy was distorting the program. "This is promoting homosexuality or at least acceptance thereof." He urged Sheridan to strip all pro-homosexual advocacy from the project’s materials to save the program.

MAINE MODEL: HARD-CORE LEFT BIAS
It appears that as biased as the West Virginia "Civil Rights Team Project" is, its progenitor in Maine is more so.

Culture and Family Report has obtained a "Resource Guide" for the Maine "Civil Rights Team Project" that is filled with pro-homosexual and liberal advocacy groups and materials, while containing nothing from an opposing pro-natural-family viewpoint on homosexuality. Among the "resources" listed in the 73-page Maine guide, compiled for "Fall 2002" by the state’s Attorney General’s office, are the following:

• The "Maine Pagan Resource Page," a Web site that lists "Pagan and Wiccan resources";
• Numerous pro-homosexual books such as Joining the Tribe: Growing Up Gay & Lesbian in the ’90s;
• The 78-minute edition of the film It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, produced by two lesbian activists, in which a boy is quoted as saying that Christians want to "torture" homosexuals;
• Pro-homosexual activist groups like Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which purports to defend tolerance and "respect" in schools but whose executive director, Kevin Jennings, has displayed blatant intolerance and hatred toward pro-family advocates opposed to homosexuality (see C&F Report article, "GLSEN’s Jennings Uses F-Word to Scold Religious Critics").

The Maine manual also contains many acceptable resources, for example, the showing of the film Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington, to encourage racial tolerance. However, though many religious organizations and materials are provided, it lists none representing traditional Christian or Jewish social concerns — such as CWA, Focus on the Family or Toward Tradition. Maine officials also deny that their "civil rights team" program promotes homosexual activism.

The West Virginia "Civil Rights Team Project" uses Maine’s materials as resources and, as in Maine, has promoted homosexual pressure groups such as GLSEN as teacher/student resources through the attorney general’s office.

RENO’S BRAINCHILD
FOXNews.com reported that the Maine "civil rights team project" was the product of a 1997 brainstorming session between then-Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and by the National Association of Attorneys General. The program or a variation of it has been used in Maine, Massachusetts, West Virginia, and possibly other states.

In Maine, students are bused from across the state to "civil rights team" conferences, in which they are instructed in techniques on preventing bullying and dealing with various prejudices and "bias language."

But in West Virginia, key aspects of the program are still unknown, irritating school board members.

"We can’t even tell you what schools it’s in," complained newly elected School Board President Howard Persinger Jr.

Across the nation, homosexual education groups like GLSEN and PFLAG (Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays) have seized on anti-bullying legislation — with a "sexual orientation" component — as way to protect "GLBT" ("gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender") students. Natural pro-family groups like Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family counter that school administrators and teachers can protect all students and put an end to bullying through blanket anti-abuse policies.

"Of course, schools can protect all students without promoting homosexuality, as they have for years," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture & Family Institute of CWA. "But this is all about normalizing homosexuality and gender confusion to students. The whole ‘civil rights team’ concept, while perhaps well intended, is yet another a Trojan Horse for the gay agenda in schools."

MCCOY LED EFFORT
Kevin McCoy, who in addition to directing the American Family Association of West Virginia is president of the West Virginia Family Foundation, led the campaign to expose the state Civil Rights Team Project. McCoy filed about 20 Freedom of Information Act requests to ferret out details of the program, which he discovered was operating, at its peak, in 22 middle and high schools in the state.

McCoy notes that the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office has a strong liberal bent. Attorney General Darold McGraw (D) supports the Civil Rights Team Project and Dawn Warfield, an attorney general of the appellate division, doubles as the state president of the West Virginia ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). McGraw defends Warfield’s First Amendment right to hold the ACLU post, but conservatives see a conflict of interest in the arrangement. The ACLU is one of the most active supporters of homosexual activist goals across the nation.

In the last several months, McCoy began bringing information about the Civil Rights Team Project to the attention of West Virginia School Board members, and some were angry that this was the first they had heard of the program. Supporters of the "civil rights team" project argued that not all programs running in the schools are pre-approved by the school board, but none were as controversial and divisive as this one with its direct links to numerous pro-homosexual groups.

"Any decisions made on this controversial subject should be made by the West Virginia Legislature and the West Virginia state school board and not from politically correct programs originating somewhere else," McCoy said.

McCoy said bullying and harassment can be stopped using the state school "Code of Conduct," rendering the "civil rights team" project unnecessary. He also criticized the program for emphasizing differences between students rather than what unites them.

School Board member Barbara Fish (R) agreed, calling it "an insidious program."

PARENTS NOT PLEASED
The school board hearing room on October 17 was full of parents objecting to the "civil rights team" project. They too had learned about the project largely through the research efforts of McCoy and other pro-family activists like Alice Click, former CWA state director of West Virginia.

"The only minority group not given protection is students who have been taught to love God and honor his precepts," parent Karen Phillips told the board, as several others shouted "Amen!" according to Associated Press.

Ultimately, after Sheridan protested that he was never given an opportunity to formally defend the program to the school board, the board and the state superintendent reached a compromise in which the project was halted pending a full investigation by a task force. Fish said the oversight process could take months, and still supports the complete removal of the program.

THANK THE BOARD
Pro-homosexual activists hope to launch programs like the "Civil Rights Team Project" in other state school systems, but they have been dealt a severe setback in West Virginia. To thank West Virginia state school board member Barbara Fish and School Board President Howard Persinger Jr., for their vigilance in grounding the pro-homosexual "civil rights team" project, write or call:

Hon. Barbara Fish
Hon. Howard Persinger Jr. c/o
West Virginia Department of Education
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305
(304)558-3660
http://wvde.state.wv.us/

To thank Kevin McCoy for his determined efforts to alert the public about this radical program, call or write:

Kevin McCoy
American Family Association of West Virginia
P.O. Box 11752
Charleston, WV 25339
Phone: (304)965-6700
E-mail:

afawv@afo.net

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