For those of us long removed from high school, memories of friends, classes, and teachers may be fuzzy. But if we faced discrimination as GLBT students during those years, such memories are likely to be raw and painful.

Many of us grew up in a period before gay-straight alliances, when we feared for our safety and could not fathom “coming out,” much less being accepted by our peers. We were often isolated, afraid, and discouraged.

After five years of GLBT youth coming to Sacramento to share their stories about the violence and harassment they faced in California public schools, the legislature passed the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000. The law prohibited discrimination in public schools based on a student’s real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. The law also applied such protections to disability, nationality, race, ethnicity, and religion. It required administrators and teachers to educate themselves about their duty to protect students and make schools safer.

Not long after passage of the 2000 law, however, it became apparent that some parts of the education code did not reflect the new language. In the case of charter schools, the education code only prohibited “racial, sex or ethnic discrimination.” It was not an accurate expression of the 2000 law because it omitted “disability, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.”

To correct this omission, Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) introduced legislation in 2007 to revise the education code and create one place where parents and school administrators could find a simple listing of all the prohibited bases of discrimination. The bill, SB 777, was a straight-forward response to a technical oversight. It soon became a vehicle for extreme right-wing activists to challenge the original protections afforded GLBT students more than seven years earlier.

Opponents of SB 777 distorted the effects of the bill. They argued that the legislation would prohibit any mention of “mom” or “dad” in textbooks. And they insisted that schools would be forced to have unisex restrooms, locker rooms, and showers. The claims were all false. If references to “mom” and “dad” were removed from textbooks, it would have promoted a bias against heterosexuality, which is prohibited under current law.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 777 into law last September, in what should have been the final discussion of an otherwise non-controversial bill. But extreme right-wing opponents would have none of it. Opponents sought to overturn SB 777 through a lawsuit filed last November, and by gathering signatures to qualify a referendum on the June 2008 ballot.

Fortunately, organizers failed earlier this month to gather the necessary 433,000 signatures to qualify the referendum for the June 2008 election. That is encouraging news for fair-minded people, but it has not stopped the extreme right wing. Plans are underway to pursue a new ballot initiative that is far more destructive than just overturning the technical corrections found in SB 777. The proposed November 2008 ballot initiative would repeal the full protections granted to students more than eight years ago under the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000.

This is disturbing because of the strong need for student protections. According to the 2001 California Healthy Kids Survey, nearly 30 percent of California youth in grades seven to 11 reported being harassed based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. This is no time for us to retreat.

I urge you to remain vigilant in the fight to keep our schools free of discrimination. Our high school experience may have been dampened by bullying and harassment, but no California public school student today or in the future should have to bear similar pain.