News & Opinion
Despite President Trump and his administration's recent public attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, Illinois Public Schools have opted to continue to teach school curriculum that includes LGBTQ+ history.
Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Tony Sanders pledged that President Trump's executive orders would not affect the inclusion of LGBTQ+ history in the state's current curriculum.
"The study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people is American history. In other words, in Illinois, we strive to affirm, uplift, and support all our students and their families," Sanders said in a statement on the Illinois State Board of Education’s website.
Sanders's statement is a response to the “Dear Colleague” letter released earlier this month by acting assistant secretary for civil rights for the Education Department Craig Trainor.
In the four-page letter, Trainor declared that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, scholarships, and policies addressing racial disparities in education were unlawful.
Sander and Illinois State Board of Education’s push-back against scrubbing LGBTQ+ content from their curriculum comes as no surprise.
In August 2019 the state passed the Inclusive Curriculum Law, making Illinois the fifth state in the nation to require public schools to include instruction and adopt instructional materials that accurately portray the political, economic, and social contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
LGBTQ+ topics in the curriculum include the Gay liberation movement, the Stonewall Riots, Marsha P. Johnson, Jane Adams, and the AIDS crisis.
In addition to promoting LGBTQ+ curriculum Chicago Public Schools, the state's largest district, requires staff and faculty doing trainings to properly support transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming students.
Illinois State Board of Education’s decision to uphold LGBTQ+ curriculum comes on the heels of President Trump's recent executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” which threatens the funding of the Department of Education if they support programs that aid LGBTQ+ issues.