Next week, the Chicago Board of Education will vote on the proposed Social Justice High School-Pride Campus that Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan has endorsed. Rumors are circulating that, despite Mayor Richard Daley’s explicit opposition to the school, the board intends to vote in favor of it.

The Windy City Times, a Chicago newspaper serving the homosexual and “transgender” population, explains that “the school will exist as a training hub on LGBT issues and social-justice curricula for teachers, both locally and nationally. Social-justice history, practices and discussion will be embedded in the curriculum, allowing for all students, including LGBTQ youth, to find representation in the courses they are taking in school.” (See “Social Justice or Educational Injustice“)

It is critical to understand that the taxes of all Illinoisans, not just Chicagoans, will be used to subsidize this subversive project, because all public schools receive state funds. Arne Duncan and any member who agrees with Duncan that the state should subsidize this school had to have come to prior conclusions that homosexual conduct is safe and moral. If Duncan had concluded otherwise — if he had concluded that homosexual conduct is neither safe nor moral-he would never have recommended approval of this proposal.

It is clearly far outside both Duncan’s area of expertise and his professional responsibilities to make implicit proclamations on the nature and morality of homosexuality, and it is inappropriate to demand that taxpayers subsidize his controversial and unproven philosophical and moral conclusions.

The Windy City Times has taken notice of IFI’s efforts to oppose this school and is urging its readers to fight back, calling our letter-writing and email campaign “negative.” Our opposition to this school is only negative if our beliefs are wrong. If, however, our beliefs that homosexual conduct is volitional, unsafe, and immoral are correct, then our opposition to this school is a positive effort to protect teens, preserve a proper understanding of the nature and morality of homosexuality, and prevent our money from being used to promote radical, subversive ideas about homosexuality that will ultimately destroy marriage, destroy the natural family, and undermine fundamental First Amendment speech and religious rights. 

It is cruel and tragic that those in positions of authority today are so bereft of both knowledge and wisdom that they claim that sexually confused teens deserve to have a homosexual identity affirmed. It is cruel and tragic that, despite the absence of any supporting research, so-called “educators” tell sexually confused teens that they were “born that way” And it is a grievous offense to demand that the public subsidize this ignorance, arrogance, and cruelty. If we truly love these teens, we will speak the truth. 

Public schools must stay away from subjects that fall far outside the appropriate purview of public education. We have one week left to express not merely our opposition to, but our outrage about the proposed Social Justice High School-Pride Campus.

TAKE ACTION: Contact CPS Chief Arne Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education to express your opposition to the use of public funds to subsidize a school that affirms disputable and divisive views on homosexuality and gender-confusion.

Additional Contact Information
E-mail Arne Duncan at aduncan@cps.k12.il.us with your letter of opposition. To cc the Chicago Tribune, e-mail ctc-tribletter@tribune.com. To cc the Chicago Sun-Times, e-mail mcooke@suntimes.com. 

To mail or fax a letter, send it to:

Mr. Arne Duncan, Chief Executive Officer
Chicago Public Schools
125 S. Clark, 5th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603

The fax number is 773-553-1502.

To send to the board of education, mail a letter to:

Chicago Board of Education
125 S. Clark, 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603

The fax number is 773-553-1601.

Next Wednesday, October 22nd, the Chicago Board of Education will consider a proposal for a “gay”-friendly high school for homosexual and gender-confused students. The proposal already has the recommendation of School CEO Arne Duncan.

Despite the fact that 70 percent of Chicago high school students are testing below state standards and the sad reality that almost half of Chicago high school students fail to graduate, Chicago Public School (CPS) officials are seriously considering investing time, energy, and hard-earned tax dollars toward social engineering and the promotion of controversial views of homosexuality. 

TAKE ACTION: Contact CPS Chief Arne Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education to express your opposition to the use of public funds to subsidize a school that affirms disputable and divisive views on homosexuality and gender-confusion. 

Pasted below is a copy of a certified letter IFI’s Division of School Advocacy sent to the Mr. Duncan and the Chicago Board of Education.

RE: Social Justice High School-Pride Campus

Members of the Board of Education, 

The Illinois Family Institute strongly urges you to vote against the creation of a new and controversial Social Justice High School-Pride Campus. Subsidizing this school would represent a gross misuse of public funds. 

Public educators have no business taking a position on the nature and morality of homosexuality and “transgenderism,” which Arne Duncan necessarily has done in recommending approval of this school. 

Will the board of education also consider a high school for students who are harassed for myriad other reasons, most of which, unlike homosexuality and “transgenderism,” have no moral implications? 

Will the board of education and administrators in this high school commit in written policy to allotting equal time and equivalent resources to all sides of the cultural debate on homosexuality and cross-dressing? 

Will you ensure that curricula that address these topics are unbiased and uncensored, or will you permit only biased, censored curricula that exclusively affirm controversial, unproven theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality? 

How will the faculty and administration teach critical thinking skills on the divisive issue of homosexuality and gender identity disorder if they have previously committed only to affirm homosexuality as normative and morally defensible? 

Are the board of education and administration prepared to provide justifications and evidence for claims that homosexuality is biologically determined or that disapproval of behavior constitutes bullying?

Are the board of education and administration prepared to provide justifications and evidence for the implicit claim that volitional behavioral choices that may emerge from biologically influenced impulses are inherently moral?

Are you prepared to apply consistently to all behaviors the principle that disapproval of behavior makes students “unsafe”?

It is an outrage that Mr. Duncan would recommend and the board of education consider using the hard-earned money of Chicago taxpayers to subsidize a school whose curricula will violate fundamental educational principles regarding intellectual diversity and exploration that give public education legitimacy. 

And it is an outrage that Mr. Duncan and the board would consider using public funds to undermine the values of many members of the community who supply those funds.

If this school is approved, it will become obvious to all that the promulgation of controversial, unproven socio-political theories has replaced academic inquiry as the guiding principle of the Chicago Board of Education.

Again, we strongly urge you to vote against this proposal.

Sincerely,

Laurie Higgins, Director
Division of School Advocacy
Illinois Family Institute