Situational Ethics

The good people of Klein ISD change the rules to keep out a gay club

A A A Comments By Margaret Downing Thursday, Feb 20 2003

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In addition to the actions he took about the GSA, Principal Huff also barred the school newspaper from printing a story about the dispute. The school district's attorney overruled and a story ran, although Huff made sure it didn't appear on the front page.

He was quoted in a January 5 Houston Chronicle story as saying he did not approve the club because of its controversial nature and the district's conservative population. "Because of the community that we serve, we're a little different than some of the other high schools may be in the inner city that have allowed the club to go forward. I have to be thinking about the people, our constituency," he told the Chronicle.

Susan Renee Martin

Marla Dukler is suing the Klein school district to get a Gay Straight Alliance club at her school.

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Liz Johnson says that although this is Huff's first year as principal, he has been at the school before as a vice principal and that immediately prior to his new post, he was principal of Kleb Intermediate, which is almost directly behind Klein High. "So he knows the community very well," she says.

Which goes directly to one of Marla Dukler's main points: "I want my school district to forget the community and let us have our club to meet on campus.

"I don't see why other clubs could meet on campus but one that promotes tolerance cannot," Dukler says. This says to her that "we mean less to them than the other students at the school."

This week attorneys will take depositions, and by Friday they will go before federal Judge Sim Lake to schedule an injunction hearing. Other districts have avoided the enormous cost of litigation and have come around to following the law of the land. Klein, however, appears headed for a full-scale fight.

While some will see this as a noble defense of traditional values, the truth is that some kids are being picked on at Klein High School. This happens almost every day, and surely the school, its teachers and the district know about it. KISD isn't offering much in the way of protection, and now it won't even let the kids get together to figure out how to be something other than victims. The only way Principal Pat Huff can justify this is by pointing to his "constituency." Let's see, a constituency that lets bullies and louts rule the hallways, an intolerant, unthinking, holier-than-thou bunch with no apparent compassion but a whole lot of judgment to hand out. This is Huff's constituency? All of which -- in Klein, anyway -- is better than being gay. Right?

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