by Jeremiah Poff, Education Reporter | June 13, 2022 04:20 PM
A student leadership and diversity club in a Phoenix-area school district asked students a series of questions on their sexuality, including how they knew they were straight.
The question was part of a program used by the Unitown Club in the Scottsdale Unified School District to discuss sexual orientation with students, according to emails released by the Arizona Daily Independent. The club’s description contains no reference to sexual education.
The curriculum, which was created by the organization Anytown Learning, lists 16 discussion questions on sexual orientation, including what students think caused their heterosexuality, how they decided they were heterosexual, why heterosexual relationships are unstable, and whether they had considered that heterosexuality was a phase they would grow out of.
The sexual orientation exercise also asks students: “Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual?”
The curriculum also says that gender expression and gender identity are individual choices and gender orientation is “an individual’s internal sense of their gender” that may not align with the person’s birth-assigned sex. The program also provided a model activity for students to place themselves on the “gender spectrum” by grouping themselves in different parts of the room.
Anytown Learning describes itself as “a human relations organization dedicated to educating, embracing and empowering leaders to promote social change.” The Unitown program is a high school variation of the organization’s social justice summer camp.
“Unitown is an experiential, interactive learning experience that educates, raises awareness, and amplifies the voices of high school change agents,” the organization’s website says.
“Confronting the ‘-isms’ in the world — racism, sexism, ageism, faithism, classism, ableism, etc. — UniTown participants begin to develop inter- and intrapersonal skills that build confidence and lay the foundation for changing systems of prejudice and discrimination at their school and in their broader community.”
Scottsdale Unified School District had previously made national headlines after it was revealed that a member of the district’s school board had compiled a “dossier” full of personal information of parent activists who had expressed displeasure at the district’s efforts to incorporate critical race theory and other controversial programs into student instruction.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Scottsdale Unified School District spokeswoman Kristine Harrington said that the Unitown club was first established in the district in 1989 and is “strictly voluntary” and “requires explicit parental permission.” She added that the questionnaire on sexual orientation was “used as part of a skit.”
“Again, Unitown camp is not a required activity. Parental permission is required,” Harrington said. “Programing is evaluated regularly. Of the 4-day [camp], approximately a 90-minute block was used to identify how to build empathy and understanding for students who identify as LGBTQ+. Students have never been asked to review or respond to any of these forms or questions.
Rather, the questions were used as part of a skit by camp staff that is no longer part of the program and hasn’t been since before the pandemic.”