[RSCT] LA Times 12/30/08: Gay school's students get a history lesson with 'Milk'

[Rick Kisséll]

       http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-harvey-milk30-2008dec30,0,6473258.story

    



        From the Los Angeles Times




Gay school's students get a history lesson with 'Milk'


	Teens
feel pride for attending Harvey Milk High after watching the film about
the slain politician. But they and school officials say discrimination
is still a problem 30 years after his death.





   
       By Erika Hayasaki

   

   






         December 30, 2008

 Reporting from New York —
Gay students who attend this cozy third-floor Greenwich Village high
school did not live through the launch of the national gay rights
movement, which unfolded a few blocks away, and until recently many
knew little about the man their school was named after: Harvey Milk.

But
the new movie "Milk," on the life of one of the first openly gay
politicians to hold office in the United States, has given students at
the nation's first public school dedicated to teaching gay, lesbian and
transgender youths a glimpse into the leader's legacy, connecting them
to a history many never knew.

"When it finished, I just felt so
proud that I go to his school," said Matthew "Matty" Agnostini, 18, who
watched an advance screening with classmates from Harvey Milk High School.
"After he died, when they showed the people marching and there was a
long line of people holding candles, I remember thinking if I was there
I would have been walking too."

Orville Bell, a teacher at the
school, said after watching the movie, "I almost felt like screaming
into the audience, 'I teach at that school!' "

Harvey Milk High
School opened more than two decades ago as a privately funded program.
In 2003, the New York City Board of Education expanded public funding
to the campus and doubled its enrollment. Nearly 100 students now
attend, including a few straight students, although most are gay and
transferred from campuses where they faced discrimination and
harassment because of their sexuality. 

Harvey Milk was born
and raised in New York. He was elected a San Francisco supervisor in
1977 and is widely known for his successful battle against Proposition
6, a statewide measure that would have banned gays from teaching in
California public schools. Milk was assassinated in 1978 at San
Francisco City Hall by another supervisor who had resigned, Dan White.

"I'm
glad the film has come now for students to see the man and what he
fought for," Bell said. "It really showed a man who sacrificed for me,
and for them."

Bell, a teacher in public schools for 30 years,
recalled the 1970s and '80s, when he worked in Maryland and did not
feel safe enough to reveal to colleagues that he was gay. "I remember
very clearly playing the game, saying, 'Yes, I had a girlfriend, and we
were planning to get married.' It was all a sham."

The current
generation of gays, he said, does not face the same stigmas. They see
gay leaders holding public offices, widely portrayed in the media and
working in the political and corporate worlds. It may be hard for them
to realize there was a time when people could get arrested or fired
from their jobs for being gay.

The Stonewall riots, widely
considered the birth of the gay rights movement, erupted not far from
Milk High in the summer of 1969. When police raided a gay bar called
the Stonewall Inn, the patrons fought back.

Although students
may feel more comfortable coming out today, the battle lines over gay
rights have grown more ferocious, according to Tanya Koifman, a social
worker at the school.

"Of course things have changed since the
1970s," Koifman said. "But there is a major civil rights struggle we
are living through right now. [Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender]
people do not have the same rights in terms of marriage, in terms of
adoption. We have a very long way to go."

Even with strides,
remnants of the discrimination that people like Milk and Bell faced
still linger, school officials say, and that is why they need safe and
supportive environments. 

Last year the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network unveiled its National School Climate Survey.
Of the 6,209 gay middle and high school students polled, about 90% said
they had been harassed and 60% felt unsafe at school because of their
sexual orientation.

Although other cities have considered models similar to the Harvey Milk campus, there has been resistance to the idea.

Last
month the Chicago Board of Education dropped plans to open the city's
first public high school for gay and lesbian students after Mayor
Richard M. Daley questioned whether it would isolate children.

But
Hannah Devane, 17, a student at Harvey Milk, said mainstream schools
failed her. She felt alienated and became so depressed, Devane said,
she didn't get out of bed in the mornings. She stopped attending
classes.

 When Devane was 13, she heard about the Harvey Milk school in the news and decided to ask her counselor to help her transfer. 

"Coming here changed my life," she said. "Now, I'm an A student."

Christopher
Vega, 18, transferred to the school two years ago after feeling he
didn't fit in at his old campus. His grades had plummeted, and he
didn't know whether he would make it to graduation. His counselor
recommended Harvey Milk High. Now, he's on track to graduate and attend
college.

Recently he went to see the film, curious about the individual behind his school's name.

"Sitting
in the audience, I felt like I was there, and now I'm living through
what he fought for," Vega said. "He's like our Martin Luther King." 
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