A bill that would require school districts to alert parents when a survey is administered to students has drawn the support of anti-LGBT activists. Senate File 979 would require school districts to get written consent from parents or guardians before any survey can be distributed in public schools if it asks certain information. Current federal and state laws allow any parent of student to object to taking the survey but does not require school district to obtain parental consent for every student.

Supporters of the bill say it enhances student privacy rights. However, testimony on the bill in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday revealed that the motivation behind the bill is, in part, to block school districts from asking questions about LGBT health and safety.

Senate File 979 states, in part:

(a) A school district must obtain prior written informed consent from a parent or
guardian of a minor or dependent child before administering an academic or nonacademic
student survey, assessment, analysis, evaluation, or similar instrument that solicits
information about the student or the student’s family concerning:
(1) political affiliations or beliefs;
(2) mental or psychological problems;
(3) sexual behavior or attitudes;
(4) illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
(5) critical appraisals of another individual with whom a student has a close family
relationship;
(6) legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those with
a lawyer, physician, or minister;
(7) religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs; or
(8) income or other income-related information required by law to determine
eligibility to participate in or receive financial assistance under a program.

The bill is being sponsored by Republican Sens. Mary Kiffmeyer, Brandon Peterson of Andover, and Michelle Benson of Ham Lake. The House version, House File 99, was introduced by Republican Reps. Peggy Scott of Andover, Cindy Pugh of Chanhassen, Brian Johnson of Cambridge, Jim Newberger of Becker, Eric Lucero of Dayton, and Anna Wills of Apply Valley. Rep. John Lesch of St. Paul if the only DFL sponsor of the bill.

At a Wednesday hearing of the Education Committee, Sen. Kiffmeyer, the lead author of the bill called on Barb Anderson to testify. Anderson is a longtime foe of LGBT rights. She helped found the Parents Action League, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an “anti-LGBT hate group.” She also helped co-found the Minnesota Child Protection League, an anti-LGBT group that has been working to stop LGBT-inclusive school policies.

Anderson told the committee:
“After 24 years of researching sex education curriculum, sex education surveys, and questionnaires given to school age youth I have watched the progression of these surveys become more and more explicit in their sexual content and exposing children to aberrant sexual behaviors simply by the choices that they offer students in some of these survey questions.”

“One survey that was administered in my school district offered 12 genders for students to choose from in order to classify themselves. There are questions about religious beliefs, and personal views on sexual activity. When I took the diversity training program for teachers, we were encouraged to use a survey in the classroom to spark discussion with students called ‘Homophobia 101: A Heterosexual Questionnaire.’ This is similar to one that was given to health teachers as a resource to use in the classroom at the Minnesota School Health Education Conference that I attended a few years ago.”

Anderson distributed a handout labeled “Homophobia 101,” a document developed by Martin Rochlin, Ph.D in 1972 to challenge heterosexuals to think about privilege.

Anderson continued:

Well, this outlandish survey turns morality on its head. I’ll just read one question, number 6, ‘If you have never slept with a person of the same-sex how do you know you would’t prefer that?’ These kinds of questions encourage sexual experimentation. The message students receive when it is delivered with the authority of the school district is clear: forget what your mother and father taught you about sexuality. Just do whatever feels good to you. Once this is presented to a student by an authority figure in the classroom, it is difficult to unteach it especially when parents have not given permission for their child to take a survey like this or are unaware that this is even taking place. They are thereby unable to correct misinformation or deal with the confusion. Senate File 979 is a common sense bill that will uphold parental rights and is a common sense bill that will protect the minds of minor children.”

Anderson has long been critical of school surveys that include questions intended to capture information about the health and safety of LGBT students, including in her role as a volunteer for the Minnesota Family Council. That group was also on hand to testify in support of the bill.

Policy director Autumn Leva told the committee that her organization “gets phone calls every single school year” from parents upset about the wording of a survey. She said parents should have “the opportunity to know in advance that these questions were going to be asked of their child.”

Another anti-LGBT activist, Viktoriya Tatur, addressed the committee. Tatur has been heavily involved in organizing Russian speaking communities in opposition to trans-inclusive school policies including organizing more than 1,000 Russian speakers to sign a petition opposing the Minnesota State High School League’s trans-inclusive athletics policy. She also organized hundreds of Russian speakers to attend an early December MSHSL meeting to oppose the policy. In addition, on her blog, Tatur has been organizing her community through her blog, particularly in opposition to LGBT inclusion in the Anoka-Hennepin School District.

Tatur told the committee that she supported Kiffmeyer’s bill, in part, because “When 7th graders have to respond to a questionnaire about their sexual orientations without their parents knowing, that’s crossing the boundaries.”

But not all testifiers were in support of the bill. Matt Schafer, government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said that the bill would effectively gut the Minnesota Student Survey which gauges student risk behavior and health habits.

He said his organization and others like it “depend heavily on the Minnesota Student Survey to identify problematic behavior” and use the data to help legislators make public policy decisions.

If the bill passed, and every parent of the 100,000 or so students surveyed every year had to give affirmative permission for their children to participate, students would not be accurately represented, he said.

“Students will feel like the information they are divulging could be reported back to their parents,” he added, and they might not answer honestly about health risks.

John Salisbury, director of programs at Rainbow Health Initiative, told the committee that the bill would have a “negative effect” on student participation on the Minnesota Student Survey. That survey is important to Rainbow Health in their analysis of health and safety trends for LGBT students.

“Research shows that switching from a passive form of consent to an active form of consent — which is what’s being proposed — greatly reduces response rates overall,” he said. “I have some concerns about the administrative costs of this new form of consent both to schools doing the leg work to ensure a consistent response. That extra cost could cause schools to drop the survey all together.”

The bill was laid over for potential inclusion in the education policy omnibus bill later in the session.