IN THE ABSENSE OF A FORMAL GRIEVANCE PROCESS, GENDER JUST MEMBERS DELIVER

GRIEVANCES TO HUBERMAN’S HOME

 

Chicago, IL – On January 18, a contingent of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer, Allied, and Gender-Non-Conforming (LGBTQA/GNC) students and allies paid a visit to the home of Chicago Public Schools’ Chief Executive Officer, Ron Huberman, to deliver student grievances about heterosexist violence faced at the hands of the school system.  “Since there is no formal grievance procedure that we can find, we decided that we’d hand deliver these to your home” said Derrick Shenault, Gender JUST Leadership Team member and sophomore at Thomas Kelly High School.

 

Gender JUST’s Safe & Affirming Education Campaign Organizing Committee has been going back and forth with Huberman since the CPS leadership transition in 2009.  In June of 2009, a series of student-developed Solutions for Safe and Affirming Education were presented to Huberman at a Gender JUST community forum attended by over 175 community members.  These solutions focused on training for CPS staff, resources for oppressed students, and a system of accountability to ensure proper implementation. “These solutions are life and death for us,” said Lucky Mosqueda, Gender JUST Leadership Team member and recent graduate of Roosevelt High School.

 

A subsequent series of meetings produced a commitment on the part of CPS to implement these solutions through “intervention teams” – although no apparent progress has been made towards this end.  “We have been waiting patiently…out of respect for your schedule and out of the understanding that there are many pressing issues to which you are committed, with safe and affirming education only being one,” Gender JUST told Huberman in a letter on November 5, 2009, “That being said, we don’t feel that we can afford to wait much longer.”

 

Gender JUST’s Safe & Affirming Education Campaign is a grassroots coalition of students, parents, teachers, and allies working together to fight against heterosexism and violence towards LGBTQ/GNC students in Chicago Public Schools by organizing through an economic, racial, and gender justice framework.   Gender JUST (Gender Justice United for Societal Transformation) is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-generational grassroots organization of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer, and Allied (LGBTQA) young people, LGBTQA people of color, and LGBTQA grassroots folks developing leadership and building power through organizing.