Gay high school opens to cheers and jeers

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published Monday, September 8, 2003
A controversial public high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students opened in New York on Monday, with both supporters and protestors mobilized outside the building.
About 100 students are enrolled in the Harvey Milk High School, which is the first of its kind in the United States. Each teen applied for admission, which is granted not on the basis of sexual orientation but on experiences of harassment that may put the student at risk of dropping out.
Nearly 200 supporters of the school cheered on Monday as the students arrived for classes, CNN reported. Leading a group of nearly 10 protestors was Fred Phelps, an anti-gay minister from Kansas who has picketed at the funerals of gay men.
The school grew out of a 20-year, two-classroom program sponsored by the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), an agency that serves GLBT youth. Last year the city's Board of Education voted to expand the program, which is now bankrolled jointly by the city and HMI, Reuters reported.
Named for the San Francisco politician who was assassinated in 1978, the Harvey Milk school has been a lightning rod for controversy since city officials announced its opening in July.
Last month, Bronx state Sen. Ruben Diaz joined forces with Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based conservative legal group, to file a lawsuit against the school for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.