LGBT Rights in Music Education
Professor Louis Bergonzi of the University of Illinois has written an article in Music Educators Journal arguing for increased emphasis on the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) students and teachers in high school music classes. Bergonzi has set up a Google discussion group to this end.
Bergonzi notes that 90% of LGBT students have been harassed and that 60 percent feel unsafe. He complains that love songs are heterosexually oriented and that males have been excluded from all-female choruses. He notes that LGBT teachers are forced to “edit” stories of personal experiences and cannot discuss Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality.
In college such discussions abound. For example, one cannot read Plato’s Protagoras without noticing the opening discussion of Socrates’s admiration of Alcibiades. However, I would hope that at the high school level teachers keep discussion of their sexual tastes away from the lectern. And while it has previously disturbed me that my college business students have failed to learn basic grammar in high school, I feel better now that I know that their music teachers have vetted their sexual orientations.
Pete Chagnon of One News Now, a Christian-oriented site, has blogged his criticisms of Bergonzi’s article (h/t Jim Crum). Chagnon notes that Bergonzi’s bio on the University of Illinois Website ends with a remark to the effect that he sees schools as agencies of “social progress”. Chagnon quotes Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute to the effect that this is but one more example of social justice teaching.
Harassment is a serious problem. Whining about songs and female choruses is not. Credibility regarding the serious problem is diminished by adding trivial complaints. And I think music is allowed to have male and female choirs.
It should be noted that the Music Educators Journal is not a refereed journal. It, along with its sibling journal, Teaching Music, are publications of general interest and opinion. The Journal of Research in Music Education is the refereed journal of MENC.
I believe that MENC members are certainly within their rights to express their opinions about this issue within the forum of a general interest publication. Having said that…I did read this article and disagreed with it quite strongly, so much so that I decided not to renew my membership in MENC. I see this as an additional effort to sanitize schools of any discussion of morality or even ethics for that matter.
Indeed harassment is a serious problem. What the heck is wrong with male choirs? LGBT students are all part of society and i don’t see any reason for them to be deprived of Music Education.Everyone deserves to learn!