Defender of anti-gay North Carolina school board retires

According to an article this morning in The Winston-Salem Journal, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools (WSFCS) Attorney Doug Punger retired last week, after serving 32 years of “service” to the school system and Board of Education.

The Journal’s article is laden with high praises of Punger’s work and of how well he did in making the WSFCS policies among some of the best in the state.

The article does not, however, mention the work Punger did to protect the anti-gay actions and beliefs of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education.

It would have been Doug Punger who first helped the school board from accepting the gay-straight alliance at West Forsyth High School years ago. Of course (and Punger must have known this if he were as good a lawyer as the Journal article says), the school system was on the losing side of federal law.

Later, it would have been Punger who bowed down to pressure from a possible lawsuit and helped the school board place the gay-straight alliance at West Forsyth in a position of being “student-initiated” and “non-school sponsored” (read: ignored by students, faculty and staff).

Later, it would have been Punger who stood by and defended the school board when they refused to add sexual orientation and gender-identity to the system’s non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. He claimed the policies, as they stood, were enough to protect all students. Of course, school board members like Buddy Collins and Jeannie Metcalf just thought the “fags” were being “sinful” and “shouldn’t be protected.”

Later, in the highly questionable case of sexual misconduct charges against Susan Wiseman, an out lesbian and active member of the local Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and PFLAG chapters, Doug Punger was the one who headed up “school investigations” against her. Like school board member Vic Johnson said, being openly gay is “something that this community doesn’t approve of… as long as you’re openly gay and not accused of being with any children, I think you can get away with it.” I guess it is no coincidence that the only openly gay teacher in the school system actively working on LGBT youth issues within the school system was quickly accused of charges that would get her fired in a heartbeat. Remember… being openly gay is “something that this community doesn’t approve of.”

Later, in my personal experience with Punger, it would be him who would deny me and the members of our gay-straight alliance at R.J. Reynolds High School the opportunity to be represented, as a student club, in our school’s Inter-Club Council (a branch of our Student Government).

As our gay-straight alliance grew at Reynolds, our members felt that it was necessary that we expand our club’s mission and purpose. We became SPEAK, or Students Promoting Equality, Awareness & Knowledge, and our issues and club beliefs expanded far, far beyond working solely on issues of interest to LGBT students. From women’s history month, to black history month and race relations, as well as continued work on LGBT issues, our club was no longer a “gay-straight alliance.” In all honesty, we were a multicultural/diversity group.

We would meet personally with Doug Punger during my senior year (2003-2004). He came to one of our meetings and we asked him for school sponsorship. There was absolutely no reason to withhold school sponsorship or recognition of a diversity club or multicultural group. The school already had a student human relations council headed by one of the assistant principals and the school already held, in conjunction with other schools, a race-relations forum every year. The precedent was already set: The school system had already sponsored and recognized clubs such as ours.

But Punger refused. As he refused during that meeting he continually referred to our group as the “gay-straight alliance,” the “gay club” or “GLSEN group” (a throwback to the support that the gay-straight alliance had found in the local Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network chapter when we couldn’t find it at school). Punger claimed that we could not have school sponsorship because we were a “political group.” He based his assertion that we were “political” because when we, as students, approached the school board to ask for changes in policies which affected us, as students, we were engaging in “political lobbying.”

Even after we pointed out that the school had, all year that school year (2003-2004), sponsored two political groups, the Young Democrats and Teen Republicans, he refused to offer us school sponsorship. Instead, he told our Reynolds principal Stan Elrod to revoke the Democrats and Republicans school sponsorship, something for which I was personally later blamed for by members of those groups. Needless to say, the year after I graduated the Young Democrats and Teen Republicans not only received school sponsorship once again, they also appeared in the school yearbook (something not allowed for “student-initiated, non-schools sponsored” student groups).

Many people may think that Doug Punger did many great things for the school system. I and many other LGBT and straight allied students, parents and community members would disagree. My memories of Doug Punger are anything but “great.”

Thanks Doug, for all of your “service” and for helping to make my educational experience in high school a complete, living hell.

So much for Winston being an “inclusive community.” I guess Doug Punger never got the message:

Technorati Tags: Doug Punger, Jeannie Metcalf, Buddy Collins, Vic Johnson, Susan Wiseman, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System, WSFCS, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Posted in Anti-LGBT, High School, LGBT, LGBT Youth, North Carolina, Religion, Sexuality, Winston-Salem |