Lambda Legal Senior Staff Attorney Joins Plymouth-Canton Teachers for Safe School Forum

(Chicago, April 3, 2002) - Lambda Legal Senior Staff Attorney Heather Sawyer will join Plymouth-Canton Community School teachers Mike Chiumento and Tom Salbenblatt for a discussion about their recent victory over discrimination, and about Lambda Legal’s efforts to help create safer schools for lesbian and gay students and teachers across the country. Teaming up with the teachers’ union, Sawyer represented Chiumento and Salbenblatt in their challenge to the Plymouth-Canton Community School District’s order that they dismantle their lesbian and gay history month displays. A Michigan arbitrator recently ordered the school district to apologize for its misconduct against the two teachers. The arbitrator found the district had violated its union contract, as well as one teacher’s constitutional right of free speech. In addition, he determined the district discriminated against the teachers because of their sexual orientation and subjected them to unwarranted public harassment. Chiumento and Salbenblatt’s displays were in keeping with the school’s theme of respect and dignity for all, and followed similar lesbian and gay history month displays that previously were created by a staff member who is not gay. When Chiumento and Salbenblatt created displays at their schools in 1999, however, the interim superintendent and members of the Board of Education attacked them for supposedly “promoting” their personal “lifestyles.”

“For a school district to exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual and trasngendered students from a campaign of ‘respect and dignity for all’ is very damaging to all students,” said Sawyer. “The arbitrator’s decision rejects discrimination against gay students and teachers.”

Sawyer and the teachers will discuss their recent victory, as well as how to create safer schools for lesbian and gay teachers and students on April 24 at Affirmations Lesbian/Gay Community Center in Ferndale, Michigan. Lambda Legal is the nation’s oldest and largest legal organization dedicated to the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, the transgendered and people with HIV or AIDS. Headquartered in New York, Lambda Legal has regional offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and will be opening an office in Dallas later this year. WHAT: Creating Safer Schools for Lesbian and Gay Teachers and Students
WHO: Lambda Senior Staff Attorney Heather Sawyer and Plymouth-Canton Community School teachers Mike Chiumento and Tom Salbenblatt
WHERE: Affirmations Lesbian/Gay Community Center, 195 West Nine Mile Road, Ferndale, Michigan
WHEN: Wednesday, April 24, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Contact: Heather Sawyer 312-663-4413 x 22
Michael Larson 248-398-7105