This week Commercial Closet Association reported that the Ad Council will launch its first public service announcement targeted to combat anti-gay language in schools. The Ad Council is partnering with GLSEN for the project, which will target junior high school age students and highlight the rampant use of derogatory phrases such as “That’s so gay!”
While details of the PSA broadcast and online campaign are still being worked out, the announcement comes on the heels of a UK Stonewall report that found that two-thirds of lesbian, gay, and bisexual public school students reported instances of harassment in school, and 75% of young gay students attending religious schools reported the same.
The numbers are even more frightening when the harassment is broken down by type with 92% of students experiencing verbal abuse, 41% experiencing physical, and 17% experiencing “death threats.”
One section of the report discusses how technology – particularly text messages and social networking sites – allow harassment to extend beyond the schoolhouse walls. Students reported that insults and messages are posted on message boards or individual profiles on sites such as Facebook and Myspace. It’s ironic and disheartening to see the same methods gay youth are using to connect with one another for support are now being used to continue ridicule. For communications professionals that are increasingly using these sites, it
should be a wake-up call that postings and sponsored profiles will need to be carefully monitored for offensive content.
While The Ad Council’s U.S. PSA campaign will not be a panacea for bullying in schools, it’s a step in the right direction and a way to get groups with mission statements like GLSEN much needed press attention. In the UK, the Department of Children, Schools, and Families rejected a call from MPs to evaluate all school bullying with a zero-tolerance policy that is used in racial bullying in spite of the newly appointed Minister for Children pledging his commitment to working with Stonewall as a reaction to the report.
Speaking this month at Stonewall’s Education for All conference in London, Minister Kevin Brennan said the new Department for Children, Schools and Families “would focus on the security, well being and success of children in all aspects of their life and stopping bullying was a key part of that mission.” Private organizations such as GLSEN and gay youth organizations around the U.S. have similarly stepped up activities to gain publicity for the cause.
The Ad Council will continue this trend with their new campaign. PSA campaigns generally come with a built-in word of buzz component (think of the “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” or Fleishman-Hillard client “Above the Influence” campaigns) that will not only build visibility, but, more importantly get people proactively talking about it. Hopefully new efforts are timely enough to thwart the high incidents of violence seen in the UK from becoming the norm in U.S. schools.
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