Too Hot for Teacher

Student-teacher Amrit Chauhan promised his class at Murray Junior High he'd be honest about himself. But telling the kids he's gay might have cost him his teaching certificate.

A A A Comments (0) By Mary Ellen Egan Wednesday, Oct 8 1997

Don Sommers

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LAST FALL, AMRIT Chauhan's education advisor at Macalester College placed him at Murray Junior High School in St. Paul, where he was to spend the semester teaching eighth-graders English to fulfill his student-teaching requirement. Chauhan, however, didn't make it past his first week in the classroom; the school removed him after he told students he was gay. When he turned to his college advisors for help, Chauhan maintains Macalester failed to offer him a position with another school. As a result, he says, he didn't qualify for a teaching certificate and was instead forced to graduate as an English major. Chauhan recently filed a discrimination complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and should that fail, he says he'll take the St. Paul Public Schools system and Macalester to court.

For the first two days of student-teaching, Chauhan says he mostly sat and observed. It wasn't until his third day that Chauhan tried to break the ice. He passed out blank sheets of paper and told the students to write down anything they wanted to know about him. "I told them I'd answer their questions as honestly as possible," he recalls. The following day, when several students asked him if he was married or had a girlfriend, Chauhan decided not to hide his sexual orientation. State anti-discrimination law, he insists, is clearly on his side. "I assumed I could say what I needed to say."

Later that morning, Chauhan's supervisor, Leonard Vignilo, told him that Murray Principal Tom Olin didn't want him discussing his sexual orientation. "He [Vignilo] told me I should 'let it ride, and not talk about it,'" says Chauhan. When he returned from lunch later that day, a police officer was sitting in on Chauhan's class. "He never introduced himself or told me why he was there," says the student-teacher. He suspects, however, that the cop's presence was the result of his earlier announcement. At the end of the period, Chauhan was called to the principal's office. According to Chauhan, Olin told him his disclosure was "inappropriate," and that if he continued to acknowledge his sexual orientation, he wouldn't be allowed to student-teach. "I told him that what he was doing was illegal, but he wouldn't budge," says Chauhan, who left Olin's office determined to continue teaching. The following day, his fifth, Vignilo told Chauhan not to come back.

When he told his Macalester adviser, Matthew Weinstine, Chauhan says he was told to "apologize to the supervising teacher for insulting his class." Instead, he took his problem to the department director, Ruthanne Kurth-Schai. She assured him the college would find him another student-teaching post, but the only option Macalester came up with was a four-week observation position, something he'd done a lot of his junior year. In order to qualify for licensure in Minnesota, education students are required to spend a number of hours student-teaching, in addition to observing.

"He was not allowed to come back to school because he's gay, period," says Chauhan's attorney, Leslie Lienemann. Not only did the junior-high's principal violate the law, she charges, Macalester's administrators failed, too. "They have an obligation to see that their students aren't discriminated against," says Lienemann. "They should have rallied behind him, rather than pulling him down."

Kurth-Schai, Macalester's director of education, declined to comment, citing the state's ongoing investigation. Murray Principal Tom Olin did not return City Pages' calls. Murray and Macalester have 45 days to respond to Chauhan's charge, while he himself has to decide if he wants to continue with the complaint or file a civil suit instead. Legally, people who feel they have been discriminated against can't file lawsuits while their cases are before the state. The Human Rights Department could order Macalester or Murray to reinstate Chauhan, but unlike civil courts, can't grant monetary damages to victims of discrimination.

Chauhan says all he wants is to earn his degree. "I can't really say enough about how much losing my position as a student-teacher hurt me," he says. "To lose [this] was devastating." His concerns, however, aren't limited to his future, but also to those students who witnessed his dismissal.

"It disturbs me to no end the message those kids were left with. When Mr. Olin removed me, they absorbed an enormous message of hate and victimization." And not just toward others but to themselves as well. "Some of these kids will grow up to realize that they have gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender feelings and emotions. And," he adds, "this incident may keep many of them silent about their own same-sex attractions."