Feature
Gay wrongs?
by Mary Jane Boland
Education Minister Chris Carter is supporting a new scholarship that bans applications from “straight” schoolchildren.
Labour MP Chris Carter is well known for supporting gay rights but legal experts say his latest foray – supporting a scholarship for gay or lesbian schoolchildren – is skirting discrimination.
Carter, also Minister of Education, is patron of the Gay Auckland Business Association (Gaba), which this week distributed flyers to secondary schools asking students to apply for a $2000 tertiary scholarship. The catch? Applicants must identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender – along with excelling in effort and achievement at their school. Carter’s name is at the top of the flyer, listed as a patron of Gaba.
Asked for comment, Act Party leader Rodney Hide says news of the scholarship is the last thing Prime Minister Helen Clark needs as Labour struggles in the pre-election opinion polls.
“It’s a big story … It’s good that they have scholarships but you should not make it on the basis of one’s sexuality, just like Chris Carter would be mortified if there was a scholarship that only straight people could apply for.”
Hide says the scholarship is discriminatory and it is wrong for the Education Minister to be involved in anything that discriminates against a sector of the school community. Dragging sexual-identity policies into the school system is unnecessary, he says.
“Helen Clark won’t like this heading into the election. She made a conscious decision in 2005 to play to what we call the mainstream of New Zealand. Two months out from the election, Chris Carter has mucked this one up – it’ll erode the votes she needs.”
National Party education spokeswoman Anne Tolley says Carter’s involvement with the scholarship is unusual. The actual scholarship doesn’t appear any different from scholarships that support women, Maori or Pacific Islanders, but Tolley says she’s concerned that an Education Minister is supporting a scholarship that focuses on one particular sector of society.
“If I was in his position as the patron of the group, I would consider standing aside so I wasn’t seen as promoting one category over any others … that’s the thing for a minister; he’s supposed to be there for all students.”
University of Auckland law faculty dean Professor Paul Rishworth says the way the Human Rights Act applies to scholarships is highly complex. The key question is whether it is unlawful to exclude someone from applying because they are not gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
Rishworth says an organisation that offers a service to a section of the public cannot limit who can get the service – for example, people cannot offer goods and services to only a certain racial group.
The next issue, he says, is whether gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students need this sort of “financial assistance to achieve an equal place with other members of the community … It is hard to imagine that this sort of assistance is needed in the present situation.”
Human Rights Commission spokesman Gilbert Wong says the scholarship could fit into the section of the Human Rights Act that allows exceptions to the ban on singling out certain categories – such as allowing special scholarships for Maori or Pacific Islanders. Some could say that gay and lesbian students are not treated equally, Wong says. “It could be argued that people with this sexual orientation have experienced discrimination in the past.”
He says the commission would be obliged to assess the issue if anyone lodged a complaint.
Carter said he was “very proud to be a patron of Gaba … They are a private organisation whose charity work for New Zealand’s GLBT community should be commended. Although I played no part in their decision to offer this scholarship … I am supportive of their decision to offer it.
“I know that other groups such as Rotary, Lions and various ethnic organisations also support students in pursuing academic success. As Minister of Education, I welcome any group who supports young New Zealanders in getting a better education for themselves.”
Asked if he believed the Gaba scholarship was discriminatory, he said he didn’t believe it was any different from other targeted scholarships aimed at creating positive role models.
