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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Educated Reporter: In Minnesota, Open Discussion Comes Out of the Closet

The Educated Reporter: In Minnesota, Open Discussion Comes Out of the Closet:

In Minnesota, Open Discussion Comes Out of the Closet

In the wake of a Rolling Stone story that depicted its campus communities as terrifying places to be a gay student, the school board of Minnesota’s largest school district has overturned a policy that required teachers to remain neutral during classroom discussions related to sexual orientation.

Some critics of the policy said it was actually feeding the flames of homophobic cruelty in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, which was stunned by a rash of student suicides by teens whose families say were victims of intense bullying.

Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s comprehensive and emotionally charged narrative painted a picture of a school system where students openly mocked their peers who were thought to be gay. For some of the students, the hostile environments seemed to have become unbearable: Nine students committed suicide during