Here at SBHS, our LGBT club participates and encourages participation in the Day of Silence every year. Friday, April 27th, is the official date, and we will be participating. The club is selling the participation buttons as a way for others to know that they are participating. They are one for $1.50 or two for $2.00. Upon purchasing the button, you will be given a notecard as well. The notecard explains what the Day of Silence is, so that students who get questioned do not have to speak. We also provide safe rooms throughout the campus. They will have a flyer that states ‘Safe Space,’ and they are used for rooms that students can go to when feeling threatened or overwhelmed by the day. I encourage you to buy a button and participate in this national movement for awareness and acceptance.

According to GLSEN, nearly 4 in 5 LGBTQ students don’t see positive LGBTQ representation in their curriculum, nearly 9 in 10 experience verbal harassment, and almost a third miss school for feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. The Day of Silence is a national movement to highlight the silencing and erasure of LGBTQ students in school, which demands that school leaders take action to be more inclusive.

The Day of Silence is the GLSEN‘s annual day of action to spread awareness about the effects of the bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students, as well as anyone else who identifies in subcategories of such. The true intent of Day of Silence is to call attention to the fact that many LGBT people and students face harassment and discrimination on a daily basis. It has been held each year in April since 1996. Students take a day-long vow of silence to symbolically represent the silencing of LGBTQ students.

The Day of Silence (DOS) is a student-led day of action on which those who support making anti-LGBT bullying and harassment unacceptable in schools participate in events to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment – in effect, the silencing – experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students and their allies.

The First Amendment allows schools to restrict speech that is lewd, vulgar, indecent, clearly offensive, or that substantially interferes with the work of the school or the rights of other students. However, the unpopularity of a particular viewpoint has been rejected by the courts as justification for preventing student speech (or silence). When other students or community members try to disrupt the individual rights of students or Day of Silence activities, the appropriate response would be to address the disruptive behavior of those opponents. While a school may address student activities that are truly disruptive, courts have not allowed districts to prohibit students (and Gay-Straight Alliances/LGBT clubs) from organizing events because of negative community sentiment or other potentially disruptive responses.