Miami Beach officials to school principals: Teach LGBTQ history despite board’s vote

Miami Beach officials approved a measure Wednesday that urges school principals to recognize October as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History Month and teach LGBTQ history in their schools, despite the Miami-Dade School Board’s vote last week to reject recognition of the month.

The Miami Beach City Commission resolution condemns the school board’s decision and encourages local school administrators, parents and students to “acknowledge and teach LGBTQ history within their schools to the fullest extent permitted by law.”

The item, sponsored by Commissioner Alex Fernandez, offers sample language for school leaders to consider adopting that would designate October as LGBTQ History Month.

“This is about the history, recognizing that we have a history, that we exist,” said Fernandez, who is gay. “We’re not pushing it on [school leaders], we’re just giving them the ability to make a determination.”

The resolution urging schools to teach LGBTQ history passed 5-1 with Commissioner Steven Meiner opposed. Meiner said he supported the city honoring October as LGBTQ History Month but felt it was beyond the commission’s purview to advise school officials.

Fernandez told the Miami Herald he is not yet aware of any schools or organizations planning to adopt the language, which will be published on the city’s website. But he said he has spoken to parents who support it and students who “want to be empowered to have their voices heard.”

The city’s Committee for Quality Education voted Tuesday to endorse the measure.

“It is simply the right thing to do,” Fernandez said.

School board member present

Shortly before the City Commission voted on the proposal, Miami-Dade School Board member Lucia Baez-Geller — whose district includes Miami Beach and who cast the lone vote last week in favor of honoring LGBTQ History Month — delivered an invocation to kick off the meeting.

Mayor Dan Gelber said he invited Baez-Geller to give the invocation and supported Fernandez’s resolution.

“I’ve been very troubled personally with the things I’ve heard out of Tallahassee and now our local school board,” said Gelber, a former state legislator. “When you feel strongly about something happening in your city, you speak out.”

Miami Beach officials said they believe individual schools would be within their rights to honor LGBTQ History Month even after the school board gave in to “pressure from fringe groups.”

The resolution notes that the school board’s attorney, Walter Harvey, told the board last week that he believed the proposal was in compliance with the state’s controversial Parental Rights in Education law because it did not present changes to curriculum or instruction.

Several school board members who voted against the measure — which proposed to recognize LGBTQ History Month and to teach 12th-graders about two landmark Supreme Court cases — disagreed with the attorney’s analysis, citing the law dubbed by critics as Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in March, prohibiting instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade and potentially restricting such instruction for older kids.

Proposal leads to friction

Miami Beach has long been a haven for the LGBTQ community. The city holds an annual Pride festival and parade and is home to popular gay bars and nightclubs.

But Fernandez’s proposal sparked tension at Wednesday’s meeting after Meiner declined to support it and said it went “way beyond our lane” as elected officials.

Meiner supported a separate item, proposed by Commissioner David Richardson, to designate October as LGBTQ History Month in Miami Beach.

But Richardson, who is gay, criticized Meiner’s decision not to support the Fernandez proposal. He pointed to Meiner’s opposition last year to renaming a street to honor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.

“He’s building quite a record of voting against the LGBT community,” Richardson said.

Meiner said he took offense to the suggestion and noted that he only opposed the street renaming because Milk didn’t have ties to Miami Beach. He briefly left the dais during the heated discussion before returning.

“I am so upset right now that my colleagues have chosen to attack me for their own personal gain,” he said. “There should never, ever be discrimination of any kind, in any forum.”

Miami Herald staff writer Sommer Brugal contributed to this report.