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Much work needed in multicultural education

By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Board Columnist Not everyone at the multicultural education convention in Denver embraces all aspects of diversity. Heather Hackman, associate professor with St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, made that clear Friday in her morning speech. She told the 19th Annual International Conference of the National Association for Multicultural Education that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender often feel excluded. "We are your brothers and sisters, and we have always been here," Hackman said. She said gay people often feel pushed to the margins. The same concerns were voiced in an afternoon program in which students voiced their concerns. Dena Samuels, a student at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, said 97 percent of all students K-12 have reported hearing homophobic comments. She added that 53 percent of the respondents in a survey said that such anti-gay comments come from faculty. "We need to do better in education," Samuels said. Hackman said people have said LGBT issues will threaten any curriculum change in schools that might include multiculturalism. "That's a slippery slope logic," she said. The women's movement excluded lesbian issues, thinking the inclusion would threaten any progress that women might have gained in passing the Equal Rights Amendment. The women's movement also curbed opportunities to address core concerns of racism, which women of color face. "It never really works," Hackman said. "We're all in it. You're not leaving any of us behind. Take all of us or none of us." Marta Loachamin, at the University of Phoenix in Colorado, said talking about race in America is like talking openly about sex. Samuels agreed: "It's such a taboo. You're not allowed to say multicultural education or even talk about race. But we are not all the same." Hackman dismissed the notion that links the sexual orientation struggle with the black struggle for civil rights. "Gay is not the new black," she said to applause. "It is disrespectful," Hackman said. "It is a misappropriation." The struggle for gay rights is a civil rights struggle all of its own. President Barack Obama just this week signed into law a bill that includes violence against gays and lesbians as hate crimes. Hackman praised Obama's presidency, but she added that his term has caused an incredible backlash against human rights concerns and a resurgence in neo-Nazi and other hate group activity. She said organizations pushing for diversity have to unite and be just as passionate and aggressive in inclusiveness as hate groups are in their anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, classism and other "isms." "We must stop the us-them dicotomy and move to the same intersection of inclusion," Hackman said. Mitchele Ansley-Marie Beaver, a student at the Wilson for Life Leadership Institute in Washington, said she thought multicultural education would help close the achievement gaps so that all students can succeed in school. So many students of color don't see themselves in schools' Eurocentric-based studies. All-inclusive multicultural education is "very, very much needed," Beaver said. "It's not that people don't care. They just need that fire lit."