When the Supreme Court last month ruled that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry in every state, the court laid the groundwork for all future civil rights struggles, asserting that the Constitution extends equal protections to all citizens.
“[I]n interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has recognized that new insights and societal understandings can reveal unjustified inequality within our most fundamental institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged,” read the five-justice majority’s opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Unfortunately, those words didn’t resonate in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, when an amendment that would have extended anti-bullying protections to LGBT students failed to pass. The measure would have been attached to the Every Child Achieves Act, the Senate’s replacement for the long-derided No Child Left Behind law that passed the Senate on Thursday in an 81-17 vote.
The Senate voted 52-45 in favor of the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, but it needed 60 votes to become part of the bill. Seven Republicans crossed the aisle to support the measure. Fortunately, Maine Sen. Susan Collins was among them. Maine’s other senator, independent Angus King, also supported the measure.
The amendment would have extended federal civil rights protections to LGBT students, asserting in federal law that schools can’t discriminate against students based on sexual orientation or gender identity, perceived or otherwise, and that they can’t ignore harassment directed at students based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The amendment would have allowed affected students to file civil rights complaints on these grounds.
Federal law already prohibits such discrimination based on race, national origin, sex and disability. It’s time the same protections extended to LGBT students.
An annual school climate survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has found that conditions at school have improved in recent years for LGBT students. However, far too many reported in the group’s 2013 survey that they still don’t feel safe at school due to their sexual orientation (55 percent) and that they have been physically harassed (36 percent) or, worse, assaulted (16 percent) because of it.
Meanwhile, schools across the county have an inconsistent patchwork of anti-bullying policies, many of which don’t address harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
A federal law would ensure that all LGBT students, regardless of where they live and attend school, have the same legal rights protecting them from harassment based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. A federal law is justified based on the Supreme Court’s determination that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment is fluid and its protections can be extended to new populations subject to unequal treatment.
Another glaring example of unequal treatment in the U.S. is the lack of federal protections to keep an employer from dismissing an employee because of his or her sexual orientation or for a landlord to deny a prospective tenant housing on that basis. As with protections from anti-LGBT bullying, whether an LGBT adult is protected from discrimination depends on where he or she lives.
Maine, fortunately, is among those states that prohibit employment, housing and other sorts of discrimination — such as access to public accommodations — based on sexual orientation, though not gender identity. But such discrimination shouldn’t be allowed anywhere.
Those fighting for LGBT rights have a solid justification for equal protection under the law in the form of Kennedy’s Supreme Court opinion on same-sex marriage. The opinion is a guiding light for civil rights struggles present and future.
Regrettably, that guiding light didn’t shine brightly enough on the Republican side of the Senate on Tuesday.
