High school and college students in Fairbanks participated again this year in the national Day of Silence on Friday April 17. Day of Silence is the largest student-led protest for creating safer schools, with more than 1,900 middle schools, high schools and colleges participating across the country.

Students at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and at West Valley, Lathrop and Hutchison High Schools participated in the Day of Silence.

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This year’s Day of Silence was held partly in memory of Carl Walker-Hoover, who took his own life on April 6 after enduring constant bullying at school, including daily taunts about being gay, even though he did not identify as gay. Carl would have turned 12 on April 17.

UAF students wrote stories and poems on a Silence Memorial and held a candle-lighting assembly in Cornerstone Park for Day of Silence. They broke their silence with a screening of “The Times of Harvey Milk” in Schaible Hall and a discussion of GLBTQ issues on campus.

Three juniors in West Valley High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance club spoke to the Daily News-Miner about their participation in Day of Silence:

“Our school district seems to be really supportive of making sure everyone in the district feels safe, and they’ve done a good job at not tolerating harassment of any kind,” said Grace Matthews, GSA president. “I think we’ve tried to present this as helping everyone create a safe place where we can all feel comfortable in our own skin.”

“It gets easier each year,” Lachlan Gillispie said. “Each year, we hear less snide remarks, and people seem to be asking more questions before passing judgment.

“It’s important in my life,” Andrew Richard said. “There are a lot of people who are silenced when they shouldn’t have to be, and I’d like to think that something like today can help them feel supported regardless of what they believe.”

This year, the West Valley GSA students created a hallway display that brings together the viewpoints of Day of Silence and a counter event, sponsored by religious organizations and “ex-gay” ministries and held on the Monday following DoS. This so-called Day of Truth was established “to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective,” according to their web site. Students are encouraged to wear t-shirts and hand out cards with messages like “There’s freedom to change if you want to.” These students are not silent.

The West Valley GSA display says “There are times when silence has the loudest voice,” and quotes South African activist Desmund Tutu: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”