On Feb. 18, Principal Pat Kurtz sent out an email to the entire school saying that the blood drive scheduled by the Aragon Red Cross Club was canceled. Kurtz cited a need for a “spirit of inclusiveness” as the reason for the cancellation. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration says that men who have had sex with other men (MSM) in the past 12 months cannot donate blood. Many see this policy as discriminatory and possibly hurtful to gay students.
Assistant Principal Joe Mahood approved the blood drive in November of 2014. Senior Vivian Shen, Co-President of the Red Cross Club, says “I got this event approved by Mahood in November. At the time he had no objection at all, and it [had] actually been planned since November because blood drives take a few months … I had talked to [Mahood and Kurtz] several times over the course of the last three months about it, so that’s why I was really confused [when it was canceled.]”
Shen announced the blood drive at the Grand Student Council meeting on Feb. 11. Shen says, “For some reason Mahood didn’t want us using the SLR [for the blood drive], so I went to Perino to ask if we could use the Leadership room instead … She was like, ‘Also, by the way, we would rather not hold it in here because we don’t want to send out the message that we are supporting your blood drive.’ I was really confused by that statement, and then she explained it. She never said that I couldn’t do it. She just said that she would rather I not do it.”
The main argument against canceling the blood drive is that it could make closeted students justify their choice to not donate blood, thus “outing” the students. Additionally, sexually active gay male students would not be able to donate blood, thus preventing them from participating in a school-sponsored event.
In contrast, some people say that the potential good from having a blood drive outweighs the potential harm the discrimination would cause. Junior and Red Cross Club member Justin Chan says, “It’s their choice to either lie or not donate blood, but it’s not worth it to deprive everyone else from donating. The administration doesn’t understand how much the hospitals are impacted by the blood they’re not receiving. There’s a very small population of MSM at our school, and within that population, there’s an even smaller population that could maybe be offended. We wouldn’t have pressured people to donate or singled them out, so I don’t think there would have been a problem.”
Additionally, some see the new FDA policy, where MSM can donate blood if they have been celibate for a year, as a valid safety precaution. According to the Center for Disease Control, gay men accounted for 63 percent of all new HIV infections in 2010. However, some activists would like to see the one year ban extended to sexually active straight people.
Shen originally decided to cancel the blood drive after considering Perino’s concerns, sending out an email to the club on Feb. 12 saying that the blood drive was canceled. After former and current club members raised objections over the decision, Shen decided to have the club vote on the decision. The final vote overwhelmingly supported having the blood drive along with having a table protesting the FDA policy, with 55 members voting to have the blood drive and three members against.
To address the possibility of discrimination, Shen had talked to Gender and Sexuality Awareness (GSA) club co-presidents and seniors Kelsey O’Donnell, Paige Tagliafico and Ilana Summers about a possible compromise involving a table protesting the FDA’s policy and promoting the National Gay Blood Drive next to the table for blood drive signups.
However, ultimately the GSA co-presidents decided that any support of the blood drive was not in line with the GSA’s values. O’Donnell says, “I really wasn’t informed on all the facts. That was just sort of my gut reaction because I thought, ‘Oh, that seems like it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.’ But I realized that it really is a big deal … and the history of it and all the complex reasons behind it. So that’s why I had to go back on [the compromise,] because I didn’t have all the facts, and I said something before I really knew everything.”
According to Kurtz, Red Cross Club adviser and psychology teacher Carlo Corti and Leadership teacher Melissa Perino brought the controversy to the administration’s attention after the Grand Student Council meeting on Feb. 11.
Corti explains why he did not feel comfortable allowing the club members to vote on whether they should have the blood drive or not, saying, “We can’t vote to exclude other people from an activity on campus. We don’t have that power. It took a while for all of us to internalize the idea that we don’t vote on stuff like that. It’s just not an option.”
Perino declined to comment.
The administration’s rationale behind canceling the blood drive was that since students are required to be at school, the school cannot hold an event that might make some students feel discriminated against or excluded. Corti says, “A school has to take a stance on important issues that affect its students, and one of the things that gets lost is that the law compels kids of a certain age and certain area where they live to go to school … When students are here and required to be here, you have to protect them, and you have to not put them in situations that make them feel uncomfortable or bad about themselves.”
Kurtz’s email canceling the blood drive raises questions about future decisions about possibly discriminatory events. Kurtz says, “It may impact other issues as we go along. I’m happy to stand by our decision since we made it on the basis of inclusivity.”
The administration’s decision points towards a larger campaign by LGBT people and allies to further change the FDA’s policies. The FDA has changed its policies, in part because of the political pressure from the LGBT organizations, the Red Cross and the American Medical Association, from barring a sexually active gay man from ever donating to having a 12 month waiting period. Before January 2015, men who have had sex with men after 1977 had a lifetime ban from donating blood.
Many members of the LGBT community opposes the FDA policy, saying that it enforces the stereotype that all gay men are HIV positive and unnecessarily reduces access to blood donations. In an interview with PBS, Ryan James Yezak, funder of the National Gay Blood Drive, said, “Those who have been paying attention to this for a while know that a time-based deferral should be based on risk and applied to everyone who is sexually active, not just gay and bisexual men.”
The Red Cross supports “the use of rational, scientifically-based deferral periods that are applied fairly and consistently among donors who engage in similar risk activities.” People who engage in intravenous drug use or patronize prostitutes are also at risk for getting HIV. The Red Cross tests every blood donation for HIV, though a person can test negative for HIV up to a month after being exposed.
Many people say that boycotting does more harm than good by denying hospitals access to blood donations. Before the blood drive was canceled, the Red Cross Club had promised a local hospital 30 pints of blood.
Research from the Williams Institute says that lifting the ban on donations from gay men would increase the number of potential blood donors by 2.04 million donors, and the number of likely donors by 360,000 donors.
In addition, some see the boycotts as a politicization of what should be a humanitarian act. Shen says, “The reason I was kind of leaning towards [having the blood drive], rather than calling it off completely is because we really don’t want to politicize what the Red Cross does. The whole point is universality; we help everybody. It is purely because of the FDA, otherwise we don’t discriminate against anyone; we help everyone and anyone.”
Additional reporting by Emily Shen and Matt McHugh.
