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PROGRESS

REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS AT CHINESE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL SECONDARY DIVISION CIS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP JUNE 2012

Table of Contents

Executive Summary Lack of democratic decision-making processes Censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression Lack of socio-economic diversity Poor and insufficient working conditions of staff Human Rights Education Lack of fair and transparent disciplinary procedures Institutional discrimination against people of LGBT identity Appendix 1 Links to 2010 Human Rights Audit and 2011 Progress Report Appendix 2 List of blocked LGBT rights advocacy and education websites Appendix 3 Survey on Human Rights Education

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Executive Summary
In June 2010, the CIS Human Rights Group published the Report on the CIS Human Rights Audit of Chinese International School1. The report identified four particular areas of weakness at CIS and made recommendations for improvement in those areas. It also made recommendations that cut across particular areas. In June 2011, the CIS Human Rights Group published the Progress Report on the June 2010 Human Rights Audit of Chinese International School 2. It focused on the four areas of weakness (lack of democratic decision-making processes, censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression, lack of socio-economic diversity, and unfair and unreasonable working conditions of security guards) identified in the audit and one of the cross-cutting recommendations (human rights education). This 2012 Progress Report follows up on the Audit and 2011 Progress Report, reporting on each of the areas of weakness and human rights education. Because working conditions and terms of employment and appointment of teachers have worsened in the past year, the area previously called unfair and unreasonable working conditions of security guards is now called poor and insufficient working conditions of staff. The 2012 Progress Report also contains two sections on recently identified weaknesses: lack of fair and transparent disciplinary procedures and institutional discrimination against people of LGBT identity. In each area, the 2012 Progress Report reviews occurrences and issues from June 2011 to May 2012, arrives at findings, and makes recommendations based on the findings. Overall, the 2012 Progress Report finds that insufficient progress has been made in these areas of weakness. In some areas, there has been some improvement. In many instances, the situation has worsened rather than improved. While concrete, specific steps can be taken in each area to improve (as indicated in the recommendations), the 2012 Progress Report finds that the underlying cause of insufficient progress on human rights is that the school as an institution has not embraced a rights perspective on education. Such a perspective involves inculcation of a culture of respect for and promotion of human rights in all areas of the institution. It puts rights at the center of policy and practice. This perspective is essential to a modern education. It ensures the fairness of the school as an institution and prepares students to be citizens in both local and global society. The 2012 Progress Report asserts that one of the most important ways that CIS Secondary can improve its education is to adopt this rights perspective. In order to provide the best education it can, a school should be a microcosm of the sort of society it wishes its students to realize. Currently, CIS passively reflects the society in which it exists, mirroring the authoritarian 1 http://www.scribd.com/doc/57974052/CIS-Human-Rights-Audit-June-2010 2 http://www.scribd.com/doc/57978539/Progress-Report-June-2011-on-the-CIS-Human- Rights-Audit 3

tendencies of the three cultures that are its main influence, corporate, colonial and authoritarian Chinese. In order to become a truly modern school and provide the best education possible, CIS has to recognize and address these authoritarian tendencies as they appear in the school and articulate its vision of the society it wants its students to realize, basing this vision on respect for and promotion of the rights of its employees and students. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS For details of findings and corresponding recommendations, please see the full sections dedicated to each area following this executive summary. LACK OF DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES Little progress has been made. There are no agreed-upon, systematic processes or structures for decision-making. As a result, faculty and students remain largely excluded from decision- making, and it is unclear how decisions are made. They appear to be made in an ad-hoc and arbitrary manner. The student bodys participation in decision-making has increased to some extent, largely due to greater assertion and initiative on the part of the Student Council and some students. Faculty participation in decision-making has not increased. There has been no substantial reform of faculty meetings. The head of school expressed his opposition to an independent staff association. There is no faculty or student representation on the Board of Governors. Agendas and minutes of Board of Governors meetings are not made available to the faculty or students, nor does the head of school regularly report on decisions or outcomes of Board of Governors meetings. CENSORSHIP AND RESTRICTIONS ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION There has been little progress in reducing censorship or expanding freedom of expression. The situation may be worsening. The school administration has agreed to trial a new web filtering service after a discriminatory pattern of blocking of LGBT rights advocacy and education websites was reported, though it refused to recognize the pattern of blocking as discriminatory. The Student Council has actively promoted freedom of expression and encouraged students to speak out on school issues. What progress has been made in these discrete areas may have been offset by instances of censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression, indicating that the school administration is not committed to creating an environment of freedom of expression and academic freedom. Because of the lack of demonstrated, consistent commitment to freedom of expression on the part of the school administration, the culture of self-censorship first noted in the 2010 Human Rights Audit is still prevalent amongst students and faculty, although there have also been notable instances of students especially becoming more assertive. 4

LACK OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIVERSITY There is very low socio-economic diversity at CIS. There has been no increase in socio- economic diversity over the past year, but potentially substantial progress has been made. The school administration formed a financial aid committee made up of school administrators, teachers, students, parents and alumni. The purpose of the committee is to create a financial aid program, with the aim of implementation in the 2013-2014 school year. The exact objectives and details of the program have yet to be decided. If the committee explicitly commits the program to increasing socio-economic diversity and articulates a goal of eventually admitting applicants based solely on merit and not on ability to pay, it will lead to substantial broadening of socio-economic diversity at the school. POOR AND INSUFFICIENT WORKING CONDITIONS OF STAFF In the 2010 human rights audit, many issues regarding working conditions of employees were raised, but the situation of security guards was identified as particularly acute and in need of urgent attention. The main issue identified at that time, security guards unreasonably long work hours72 hours per week--, still has not been addressed by the school. Up to June 2011, the school was not in compliance with the law as it was not giving security guards public holidays, and in the case of some employees, had not done so for many years. Since then, it appears to have entered into compliance with the law, granting public holidays and paying the security guards compensation for the public holidays denied them in the past. In the past year, working conditions and terms of employment and appointment of faculty appear to be deteriorating. In August 2011, the head of school stated at an all-school faculty meeting that he did not regard it to be in the schools interest for the faculty to form a faculty association, though freedom of associations and the right to form and join trade unions are basic human rights. The school does not audit the impact of school practices, such as purchases of goods and services, on the rights and working conditions of workers not employed at the school, an important area of social responsibility to the community and wider world. With the China Center, the school will become an employer in another jurisdiction. The school has not yet made public its guidelines for employment practices. It must ensure the rights of the employees of the China Center are protected and that the rights of current employees of CIS are respected. HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION 2011-2012 saw insufficient and uneven progress in human rights education at CIS, with one particular area showing significant deterioration. A number of teachers at CIS have integrated human rights education into diverse units in their subjects. Human rights are also a unit in Year 10 Choices, and human-rights-related issues are addressed in Choices sessions in other years. Several co-curricular groups work on human-rights-related issues. The Human Rights Group cooperates with teachers to conduct peer-to-peer education sessions on various 5

human rights in diverse subjects. In 2011-2012, The Human Rights Group organized six school-wide campaigns involving a diversity of activities and also had smaller opportunities for students outside of the group to learn about human rights and participate in activities promoting human rights. It can be therefore be said that secondary students gain some awareness and knowledge of human rights. However, the quality of the education varies. Students have been critical in particular of the Year 10 Choices sessions on human rights. The school as an institution has not taken any initiative to ensure the presence of human rights education in the overall education. Indeed, perhaps most lacking in this area is not initiatives taken to teach human rights by individual teachers and students but a commitment by the school to ensuring a coherent, high-quality program of human rights education. Apart from the teaching of human rights in discrete subjects and co-curricular activities, one of the most effective means of teaching human rights is living in a culture committed to human rights. In this respect, the other main lack in provision of human rights education is a culture of respect for human rights actively promoted and facilitated by the school. Students are often presented with human-rights-related issues as something distant from themselves and their own lives. In addition, these issues are often presented not as human rights issues per se but as terrible situations involving victims who deserve first and foremost pity and charity, not rights. In one area showing particular deterioration, the school failed in its responsibility to provide education on LGBT rights and actively prevented faculty and students from doing so. LACK OF FAIR AND TRANSPARENT DISCLIPLINARY PROCEDURES Current disciplinary procedures and practices are arbitrary and inconsistent, and they lack transparency. Except for school administration, all members of the CIS community are excluded from a role in serious disciplinary procedures. This damages the confidence of the CIS community in the fairness of disciplinary actions and creates the widespread perception of bias, favoritism and frequent conflict of interest. The school has no disciplinary, grievance or conflict resolution procedures for staff, though they are standard practice in a modern workplace. There were fewer instances than in 2010-2011 of students being disciplined unfairly, though there was an instance of a teacher being disciplined unfairly. The arbitrary, opaque disciplinary procedures and practices were largely responsible for the controversy surrounding a case of alleged academic dishonesty which resulted in an unprecedented situation in which a member of the Board of Governors sued a parent for libel. If anything, this should signal clearly to the school the need to reform this area of school practice, but when the Student Council attempted to raise the matter with the head of secondary, it was told the matter would not be taken up. At the same time, the school administration pressed ahead with drafting an Honor Code, even though it had been told by both students and faculty that such a code could not be properly considered except within the context of considering changes to disciplinary procedures and practices. INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE OF LGBT IDENTITY Over the past two years, a pattern of institutional discrimination on the part of the school against people of LGBT identity has emerged at CIS. Part of the discrimination involves the 6

schools failure to recognize the pattern even when repeatedly presented with evidence of it. No evidence of discrimination in recruitment or employment practices has been detected; however, some teachers have said they would be happy to speak at LGBT events but fear doing so in light of the fact that the school has no anti-discrimination policy. The pattern of institutional discrimination includes the following items: Failure to deal effectively with students prevalent use of homophobic slurs even when requested to do so Failure to provide effective anti-homophobic bullying and discrimination and LGBT rights education even when requested to do so Reluctance to make use of considerable faculty expertise on discrimination and LGBT education even though it has been offered Prevention of and interference in independent initiatives by faculty and students having to do with LGBT education, in particular a faculty-student initiative to start a gay-straight alliance and refusal to allow a series of LGBT education events to be called LGBT Week, even though labeling a series of events LGBT Week went against no rules or guidelines and a number of other series of events were called weeks or the like such as UNRWA Week and Tibetan Film Festival Barring of Year 7 to Year 9 students from attending some of the above-mentioned events on grounds of age inappropriateness while at the same time creating no age appropriate LGBT education even though many opportunities to do so already exist in the Choices program, which includes topics on sexuality, identity, tolerance, respect and anti- harassment and anti-bullying Blocking at least 64 websites of prominent and highly respected LGBT rights advocacy and education organizations, and refusal to acknowledge a discriminatory pattern of blocking when presented with the evidence The school has been alerted to these problems since early in the 2010-2011 school year, yet refuses to recognize the pattern, let alone take action.

LACK OF DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES The issue of democratic decision-making processes is related to Articles 20, 21 and 23 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 20 guarantees right to freedom of association; Article 21, right to take part in governance; and Article 23, right to form and join independent trade unions. The term democratic decision-making processes refers to clear, agreed-upon, consistent processes and structures for decision-making on policy matters (as opposed to administrative matters) that allow for the widest possible participation of students and faculty in decision-making on a systematic (as opposed to an ad-hoc) basis. Following the publication of the Human Rights Audit in June 2010 which identified this as an area of weakness at CIS, during the 2010-2011 school year there was no increase in student and faculty participation in decision-making. There were no structures to ensure communication between the Board of Governors, school administration, secondary administration, faculty, and the student body, and none to ensure participation of faculty and students in decision-making on important issues affecting the school and the education it provides. Except for occasional informal consultation on an ad-hoc basis, faculty and students were entirely locked out of decision-making. Widespread dissatisfaction with and protest against the suddenly implemented bag rule was one indicator of the result of lack of participation. In response to several proposals and calls by faculty to increase faculty participation, the head of secondary agreed to set up a group to advise on reform of faculty meetings, but he never set up the group, claiming lack of interest on the part of teachers. During the 2011-2012 academic year, the student bodys participation in decision-making has increased to some extent, largely due to greater assertion and initiative on the part of the Student Council and students. However, faculty participation in decision-making has not increased. There has been no substantial reform of faculty meetings. In an all-school faculty meeting at the beginning of the year, in response to proposals and calls for an increase in participation of faculty in decision- making, the head of school expressed his opposition to an independent staff association. There is no faculty or student representation on the Board of Governors. Agendas and minutes of Board of Governors meetings are not made available to the faculty and students. The head of school does not regularly report on decisions or outcomes of Board of Governors meetings. Essentially, as far as the faculty and students are concerned, the Board of Governors remains a black hole. Overall, there are still no agreed-upon, systematic processes or structures for decision- making, and as a result, faculty and students remain largely excluded from decision-making, and it is unclear how decisions are made. They appear to be made in an ad-hoc and arbitrary manner. 8

Students In the 2011-2012 academic year, the main issues in this area were: 1) election procedures for the Student Council, 2) revision of Student Council guidelines, 3) apparent confusion amongst school administration as to what constitutes representation by students, and 4) the degree to which students actually participated in decision-making. There are many problems with election procedures for the Student Council In regard to Student Council Executive elections, candidate teams are allowed to advertise for a one-week period only through posters and a single hustings at which no questions from the electorate are allowed. Serious restrictions to freedom of expression were imposed, such as a ban on advertising via Facebook or other social media platforms. Candidate teams were told to avoid discussing school policy issues. When an independent attempt was made to organize a forum, the secondary school administration intervened and stopped it. This makes for superficial campaigns and does not allow the electorate to question the candidate teams on their platforms. The secondary school leadership counted the votes and announced the winning candidate team but the results of the election were not announced or disseminated. The Student Council and Pastoral Office are currently working to address the problems, but as of yet, no clear progress has been made. RECOMMENDATIONS Lengthen the election campaign period. Create a public forum for discussing issues during the campaign period as well as a debate between campaign teams, both of which allow questions from the electorate to campaign teams. Hand responsibility for carrying out elections to students who will form an election committee responsible for all parts of the election process. Make the Student Council and the process of electing it entirely autonomous of the secondary school administration. Announce the full results of the elections. The Student Council revised the Student Council Constitution. The revisions clearly delineated the roles, responsibilities and authority of the Student Council. Under the revised constitution, the Student Council is more empowered than in the past to represent students. The secondary administration resisted recognizing the Student Council as the sole representative of the student body as a whole. This appears to be due to some confusion on the part of the administration as to the roles of other student entities, namely the Senior Student Committee and the Head Boy and Head Girl. The Student Council is the sole representative of the whole student body since it is the only body elected by all of the students. That clear role should be recognized by the secondary administration. The Head Boy and Head Girl are chosen by the school administration and

therefore cannot be representative of the student body in decision-making processes. They play a symbolic role analogous to a figurehead president in a republic or a monarch in a constitutional monarchy. Still, on the CIS website appears this description: Serving as chief representatives of the student body are the Head Boy and Head Girl, who are selected annually from among applicants from the rising Year 13 class. The Head Boy and Girl are supported in their roles by an elected Secondary Student Council. This is clearly not the case and the relationship is misrepresented. Indeed, since they are appointed by the school administration, if anything, they are the school administrations representatives to the students. The Senior Student Committee represents senior students, largely vis--vis their Heads of Year. While they may advise in decision-making on policy affecting the school, the Student Council should be acknowledged as the sole representative body in formal decision- making processes. While the Student Council played a more assertive role in proposing initiatives and participating in decision-making, it was successful only to a small degree, largely because there was no formal decision-making process in which its role was clearly articulated. The case of a proposed Honor Code illustrates the problem well. The Honor Code was initiated by the Head Boy and Girl. The head of school characterized the Honor Code in a CIS Headmasters Message as initiated by student leaders and having widespread grassroots support.3 Indeed, when the Student Council got involved in the matter, it found through consultation with students that student opinion was diverse and complex. It was instructed by school administration to distribute a draft of the Honor Code to homerooms and to solicit feedback. Time allotted for the exercise was insufficient, and it was unclear what role such feedback would play since no process had been articulated. The head of secondary created an ad-hoc committee, asking the Student Council and interested teachers to join, though it was unclear exactly what the mandate of the committee was. It was only at this point in the process that faculty were presented with the issue at a faculty meeting by the Student Council, which was not even the entity that had taken the intiative. Student and faculty response clearly indicated very little enthusiasm for an Honor Code and none of the urgency about it that the school administration showed. Instead, both students and faculty identified many other related issues that they believed were of more pressing concern. The school administration ignored the emerging consensus, instead creating a new committee, though it was unclear why this new committee was created when another committee created by the school administration already existed. The existing committee was not formally abolished and members were not informed that it had been supplanted by a second committee. For the second committee, the head of secondary and the Student Council agreed that student representatives would be elected, but the responsibility for this was given to the Pastoral Office which proceeded to select students itself. When asked why it had adopted this process of selecting students, the Pastoral Office answered that time was short. It also said that the deadline for an honor code was the end of the year, suggesting that the inception of an honor code was a foregone conclusion and leading to speculation about who had ordered that an honor code be made by that deadline. The decision-making process was incoherent, 3 CIS Headmaster's Message and Secondary Weekly Circular #12 (dd 18.11.2011) 10

unrationalized and confusing. At several points, the school administration appeared not to recognize the opinions of students and faculty, and at no point was there any faculty representation. It appeared that the school administration was attempting to bend the process to achieve a predetermined end. Faculty Faculty participation in decision-making has not increased, in spite of several proposals and calls by faculty for increased participation. Faculty meetings have not been reformed. There are no faculty representatives or representative bodies. In response to several proposals and calls by faculty in 2010-2011 to increase faculty participation, the head of secondary agreed to set up a group to advise on reform of faculty meetings, but he never set up the group, claiming the reason was insufficient interest on the part of faculty. At the start of the 2011-2012 academic year, the head of secondary organized a discussion on faculty meetings, but it was unclear what the purpose of the discussion was or how outcomes would be reached. There were virtually no changes to faculty meetings afterwards. The agenda is controlled by the head of secondary. Rarely does the head of secondary make calls to faculty for agenda items. Large portions of meetings are still taken up conveying information from the secondary administration to the faculty, even though a clear suggestion by faculty was to minimize the amount of time used at faculty meetings to convey information. No decisions are made at faculty meetings. Faculty meetings have no clear role in decision-making processes, which do not exist. In response to calls at the end of 2010-2011 for a faculty association to represent faculty, at an all-school faculty meeting at the beginning of the year, the head of school expressed his opposition to an independent staff association, deeming it not appropriate for CIS. It was unclear on what basis he made that determination, but in doing so, he pitted himself against two basic human rights, the right of freedom of association and the right to form and join independent trade unions. His statement had an intimidating effect on faculty. There is no staff representation on the Board of Governors. The exclusion of faculty from decision-making is not only a matter of rights and fairness; it damages CIS education. Within the CIS faculty, there is significant educational expertise. Since the faculty has no formal role in a clear decision-making process, the educational expertise of the faculty is not harnessed; indeed, in most cases, it is ignored. The lack of a culture of discussion and decision-making that actively solicits and provides mechanisms and regular opportunities to discuss the best ideas significantly impoverishes CIS as an educational institution. Not only should faculty have a formal role in making decisions on all matters of policy, but faculty meetings should be used to allow faculty to present items that will help the school determine its educational agenda and priorities. Without that, CIS is constantly in a situation of overlooking major educational assets and neglecting educational issues that need to be addressed. 11

RECOMMENDATIONS

Articulate, with student and faculty involvement, clear decision-making processes and structures which ensure the full participation of students and faculty in decision-making on policy matters. Make faculty meetings faculty-run decision-making fora with a clear role in the overall decision-making process. Hold faculty meetings twice a month, primarily for purposes of discussion and decision-making, with informational items kept to the strictest minimum. In order to make decisions, faculty should vote on formal proposals, with the head of secondary retaining the right of veto of all faculty decisions. Allow the formation of a faculty association and recognize the faculty association. Create positions of faculty representative and student representative on the Board of Governors, and allow faculty and students to elect their representatives. Post agendas and minutes of Board of Governors meetings to faculty and students in a timely manner. Allow two students selected by the Student Council to be observers at each faculty meeting. Make minutes of faculty meetings available to the Student Council.

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CENSORSHIP AND RESTRICTIONS ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION This issue is related to Article 19 in the UDHR on the right to freedom of expression. Overall, there has been little progress in reducing censorship or expanding freedom of expression. The situation may be worsening. The school administration has agreed to trial a new web filtering service after evidence of a discriminatory pattern of blocking of LGBT rights advocacy and education websites was presented to it. The Student Council has actively promoted freedom of expression and encouraged students to speak out on school issues. What progress has been made in a few discrete areas has been offset by instances of censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression, indicating a deterioration in the situation or lack of commitment by the school administration to creating an environment of freedom of expression and academic freedom. Because of the lack of demonstrated and consistent commitment to freedom of expression on the part of the school administration, the culture of self-censorship first noted in the 2010 Human Rights Audit is still prevalent amongst students and faculty, although there have also been notable instances of students especially becoming more assertive. On several occasions over the past two years, the school administration has punished and/or censored expression in student-made videos, posts on Moongate and even on platforms entirely outside of school jurisdiction such as Youtube and Facebook. Since there are no school rules restricting freedom of expression (except for those in the CIS computer users policy related mostly to accessing gaming, sexually explicit and violent websites as well as prohibiting expression that constitutes harassment or bullying), the criteria the school administration uses to censor and punish are unclear and appear arbitrary. There has been a pattern of the school administration focusing on the mode or method or way of expression as inappropriate, as opposed to what was expressed, but in many cases of censorship, restrictions on freedom of expression and related punishment, the content of expression was criticism of the school administration or of some aspect of school policy, creating the impression that the school administration was using inappropriateness of expression as an excuse to punish people for what they said. The instances of the school administration punishing and censoring expression have had a chilling effect and contributed to a culture of self-censorship among students and faculty which is not conducive to the academic freedom an educational institution should guarantee and promote. Though asked in the 2010-2011 academic year to express support for freedom of expression and consistently promote it, the school administration has not responded. The past year has seen a number of incidents involving issues of censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression.

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Attempted prevention of publication of 2011 Progress Report on Human Rights

In June 2011, the head of school and head of secondary tried to prevent the publication of the 2011 Progress Report on Human Rights at CIS. The attempt was successful in delaying its publication until the last day of the school year, when fewer students and teachers were likely to take notice of it. Prevention of meeting between Student Council candidates and voters

In August 2011, the secondary administration prevented a Chill + Grill session, an informal gathering at which teams campaigning for Student Council could meet and talk with voters. The secondary administration claimed the reason was that the event was organized at the last minute and could disrupt the campaign, but complaints made about the election process in the previous school year had not been addressed and the administrations decision seemed to suggest a policy of restrictions on independent initiatives associated with the elections. Attempted punitive actions against presenters of Friday Morning News

In October 2011, Year 9 students were taken to task by the secondary administration for airing graphic news clips of the deaths of Muammar Ghaddafi and Yue Yue on Friday Morning News. The Year 9 students are generally acknowledged to have done an overall excellent job of presenting the news, improving upon past years. The clips aired were controversial but had appeared on television news broadcasts around the world. While some discussion of the appropriateness of showing such clips in school may have been merited, it should be recognized that the Year 9 students were acting no differently from some of the biggest and most respected media organizations. Instead, the punitive approach taken by the secondary administration was censorious in nature and closed down discussion of the matter. It appears that only the strong intervention of a parent of one of the Year 9 students headed off punishment. Blocking of LGBT rights on advocacy and education websites

The blocking of websites advocating equal rights for people of LGBT identity and providing education on LGBT matters continued in the current academic year. The school administration was first alerted to the problem in the 2010-2011 academic year. When alerted again in February 2012 that a large number of such sites were blocked by the school, the school administration responded that no discriminatory pattern of blocking had been proven and no further action would be taken on the matter. It argued that since there are over 360million unique websites (recent estimate) on the World Wide Web and evidence of only a dozen or so blocked websites had been presented, there was no pattern of blocking. The school administration was presented with a list of 64 blocked websites (see appendix), amongst them the most prominent and respected LGBT rights advocacy and education organizations. A search for a list of similar organizations advocating womens rights and 14

childrens rights as well as general human rights organizations indicated no blocking, with the exception of two blocked womens rights websites. In response to the school administrations statement that it would take no further action on the matter, a petition by concerned and affected students and teachers was presented to the school administration, explaining how they had been affected by the blocking and asking it to take the matter seriously. Some of the concerned and affected students met the school administration. One outcome of the meeting was that the school administration promised to look into a new filtering service. Whether or not this approach will be effective is questionable, since many filtering services have a record of blocking LGBT sites in schools. The school administration also promised to consult the school counselor and the Pastoral Office regarding introduction of LGBT education, especially in areas of bullying and sexuality, and to revisit the request of the Human Rights Group made in the 2010-2011 academic year for the school administration to express support for freedom of expression and actively encourage and promote it. CIS has subscribed to the Cyberoam filtering service and has said that it has little control over the algorithms that filter websites. ICT speculated that the websites were blocked because they contained sexually explicit content, but an investigation of the blocked websites detected not a single case of sexually explicit content. The ICT team has always un-blocked websites upon request, though some of these sites (including the GLSEN site on the Day of Silence, in which the school participates) were later found to be blocked again. Given that there is a pattern of such sites being blocked on a consistent basis, a more pro-active approach is in order. The school has been presented with research on best practices on the issue but has not responded to it. On Thursday, March 22, the ICT Department announced that a new filtering service, OpenDNS, is being trialed. No tests have yet been done on it to see if it is blocking LGBT sites. It is unclear whether or not the school administration has yet followed through on the other undertakings made at the meeting. The school administration prevented the Human Rights Group from calling its week of events and activities promoting the rights of LGBT people LGBT Week. Instead, the school administration insisted that the week be called Respect for All Week and said that it would involve a comprehensive approach to respecting others. In all communications about Respect for All Week to faculty, students and parents, the school administration did not once mention LGBT rights, though it mentioned other groups of people and though the vast majority of activities and events in the week were about LGBT rights. This censorship amounted in effect to a silencing of the very group whose rights the week was originally designed to promote, thus highlighting the need for an LGBT Week. Even though the week included a Day of Silence to emphasize the ways in which LGBT voices are silenced, the school administration did not appear to recognize the irony of its censorship. The school administration took these actions two weeks before LGBT Week in April, even though it had been notified in September 2011 of plans for such a week and had been presented with a full schedule for the week at the 15 Banning of LGBT Week label and discouragement of discussion of the controversy

start of February. In April 2011, a very successful LGBT Week was held, the schools first. The school administrations actions in 2012 represent a significant step backwards. Several faculty members expressed concerns on the matter. A request was made that it be discussed at a faculty meeting to clarify the facultys position on LGBT education and the extent to which co- curricular groups within the school had the freedom to organize independent events, but the school administration did not respond to the request or include it on a faculty meeting agenda. The Student Council actively promoted freedom of expression amongst students. It hosted town hall meetings and open discussion fora and inaugurated a Phoenix Group on Facebook where students could express whatever views they wished. Individual and groups of students have also taken initiatives to advance freedom of expression. However, there are still no school assemblies for discussion or debate of school issues and no arenas in which faculty and students discuss school issues openly and freely without fear of repercussions. RECOMMENDATIONS The school administration should clearly express its support for freedom of expression and academic freedom and consistently promote and encourage it. The school administration should cease a punitive approach to issues of expression, whether focusing on content or style of expression. Instead, it should initiate discussions, dialogue and debate on issues of expression. The school administration should take a pro-active approach when alerted to patterns of blocking of websites by collaborating with faculty and students knowledgeable about the types of sites blocked, in line with best practice among schools which use filtering services. Students and faculty should actively make use of their right to freedom of expression and resist tendencies to self-censor. In addition, recommendations from the 2011 Progress Report are still of relevance: Refrain from punishing students and faculty for exercising their right to freedom of expression. In cases in which certain aspects of a persons method of expressing herself might be inappropriate, the person should be alerted to this, but not punished for it, especially when the person is expressing herself about an issue in which the school leadership might have a particular vested interest. If school leadership believes punishment is appropriate, the matter should be referred to a previously constituted disciplinary committee that includes students and staff members. Greater student initiative to advance freedom of expression

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Promote freedom of expression by taking opportunities to tell the CIS community of the importance of freedom of expression and of academic freedom, especially on sensitive or controversial matters. In cases where restrictions on freedom of expression might be considered appropriate, consult extensively with students and faculty to determine what exactly those restrictions should be and how they should be articulated. Any restrictions should have the consensus of the community. Offer a larger number of avenues of expression to students and staff. Currently, there are few avenues by which students and staff can communicate with the CIS community, while at the same time, the school administration apparently considers some of those avenues inappropriate. The solution is to offer appropriate avenues, such as assemblies intended to discuss school matters, a dedicated part of Moongate for free exchange of views, and faculty meetings whose purpose is discussion and decision-making (not dissemination of information).

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LACK OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIVERSITY In 2010, CIS was audited on the statement, The CIS community welcomes students, teachers, administrators, and staff from diverse backgrounds, including socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. (Related to Articles 2, 6, 13, 14 and 15 in the UDHR.) CIS was found to be lacking in socio-economic diversity. This is largely a function of the fact that the secondary schools annual tuition fees range from HK$161,700 to HK$164,000, coupled with the fact that the school has no financial aid program. 4 The effect is that admission to CIS is based primarily on ability to pay. Given that the median annual income of a family of four in Hong Kong is HK$216,000, few Hong Kong students can afford CISs tuition fees. Hong Kong is the most unequal developed society in the world. CISs high tuition fees coupled with its lack of financial aid program mean that the social effect of CIS is to exacerbate the already gross income inequality in Hong Kong. This is contrary to the principle of corporate social responsibility. It denies CIS students the opportunity to learn together with students from diverse backgrounds while it is clear that a great deal of learning that goes on in a school is peer-to-peer learning. It denies otherwise qualified students in Hong Kong the opportunity to attend CIS. In effect, it is essentially a form of segregation and exacerbates the socio- economic segregation of the Hong Kong education system. In the 2011-2012 academic year, there was very low socio-economic diversity at CIS and no increase in socio-economic diversity, but progress has been made which could potentially be substantial. The school administration formed a financial aid committee made up of school administrators, teachers, students, parents and alumni. The purpose of the committee is to create a financial aid program, with the aim of implementation in the 2013-2014 school year. The exact objectives and details of the program have yet to be decided. These include amount of financial aid offered, sources of funding, sectors of the community toward which the aid will be targeted, how those sectors will be defined, and what attempts will be made to publish and advertise the availability of financial aid. The committee is currently articulating the stated aims of the program. Of particular importance is that it make an explicit commitment to improving socio-economic diversity at CIS and that this be recognized as a main aim of the program. Ultimately, the goal of the program should be to admit students based on merit alone and not on ability to pay. This may be a long-term objective, but it should be articulated now, and a plan should be put in place for how the school will gradually arrive at this objective. CIS is a school with relatively great resources at its disposal; whether or not it makes a full commitment to socio-economic diversity is a matter of priority, not of financial capacity. While socio-economic diversity is a matter of rights and fairness, it is also essential to making CIS the best possible school and to CIS providing the best possible education. Now that initial steps have been taken to create a financial aid program, the
4 A viable financial aid program entails clearly stated policies regarding financial aid. It means financial aid is

made available to qualified applicants who have been admitted based on merit, and that the availability of financial aid is published and advertised to sectors of the community which will be the most likely to need to avail themselves of it. Some people at CIS have claimed that CIS does have a financial aid program because it tells families with students currently at CIS who face financial difficulties that they may approach the school to seek financial assistance. This does not constitute a financial aid program in the ordinary usage of the term.

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question is whether it will be only a token or will be substantial enough to help fulfill CISs social responsibility to Hong Kong as well as to have an impact on the composition of the student body and improvement of the education. While the head of school has in the past expressed support for a financial aid program, no concrete action was taken before this year. In the meantime, students have organized to push for the creation of a financial aid program, while some alumni, teachers and former teachers have expressed concern about the lack of such a program. In March 2011, 145 students and faculty delivered a petition for a financial aid program to the head of school. No concrete action ensued In November 2011, 105 students and faculty submitted a second petition for a financial aid program to the head of school. This time, the head of school responded by setting up the financial aid committee. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE FINANCIAL AID COMMITTEE

State explicitly in the financial aid program statement of purpose that the main purpose of the financial aid program is to increase socio-economic diversity by allowing qualified candidates who cannot afford tuition to enter and attend CIS. Focus on developing the financial aid program in the secondary school since merit is more easily determined at that level. Institutionalize the work of the committee in such a way that the financial aid program is an on-going part of school operations, perhaps by mainstreaming it in admissions procedures, while at the same time maintaining the current financial aid committee to provide direction and oversight to the program. Articulate a strategy for attracting qualified applicants from diverse socio-economic groups, with preference for applicants from lower socio-economic strata, within the context of merit being the sole consideration. Articulate a strategy to publicize and advertise the availability of financial aid where those eligible for it are most likely to become aware of it. Report on at least a twice-a-year basis on progress of the Financial Aid Committee to faculty, students and other members of the CIS community, and solicit feedback.

Articulate a vision for a CIS to which applicants are admitted based on merit alone, not on ability to pay; articulate a plan, including sustainable sources of funding, to show how CIS will eventually fulfill that goal; and track progress towards meeting that goal.

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POOR AND INSUFFICIENT WORKING CONDITIONS OF STAFF This issue relates to Articles 23 and 24 of the UDHR, in particular, Everyone has the right to just and favorable conditions of work, (23) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity (23) Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests (23) and Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. (24) In the 2010 Human Rights Audit, many issues regarding working conditions of employees were raised, but the situation of security guards was identified as particularly acute and in need of urgent attention. The main issue identified at that time was security guards unreasonably long work hours, 72 hours per week. It still has not been addressed by the school. Up to June 2011, the school was not in compliance with the law as it was not giving security guards public holidays, and in the case of some employees, had not done so for many years. Since then, it appears to have entered into compliance with the law, granting public holidays and paying the security guards compensation for the public holidays denied them in the past. In the past year, working conditions and terms of employment and appointment of faculty appear to be deteriorating. In August 2011, the head of school stated at an all-school faculty meeting that he did not regard it to be in the schools interest for the faculty to form a faculty association, though freedom of association and the right to form and join trade unions are basic human rights. The school does not audit the impact of school practices, such as purchases of goods and services, on the rights and working conditions of workers not employed at the school, an important area of social responsibility to the community and wider world. With the China Center, the school will become an employer in another jurisdiction. The school has not yet made its guidelines for employment practices known to current CIS employees. It must ensure the rights of the employees of the China Center are protected and that the rights of current employees of CIS are respected. The 2010 Human Rights Audit and 2011 Progress Report have been tracking the situation of the security guards since 2009-2010 when concern was first expressed that security guards are forced to work an excessive number of hours: 12 hours per day, 6 days a week, for a total of 72 hours. The administration argues that this is standard practice in Hong Kong. At the same time, CIS frequently aspires to meet or exceed international standards. Hong Kong is the only developed economy in the world without a law regulating maximum work hours. It would be illegal in every other developed economy for workers to work 72 hours a week. (For details about maximum work hours in developed East and Southeast Asian economies, see the 2011 Progress Report.) Therefore, employment practices in this area clearly fall below international standards. In June 2011, when asked if it was fair that the security guards are forced to work 72 hours a week, the head of school answered, It might be fair. There are no other developed economies in the world in which it would be considered fair. At a time when 20 1. Security Guards

CIS is making major capital investments in diverse projects, it would be difficult for CIS to argue that it cannot afford to offer the security guards just and favorable remuneration and reasonable limitations on working hours. It is a matter of priorities. It would cost relatively little and would mean a significant improvement in the lives of security guards and their families. In June 2011, it was reported to the school that the security guards were not being given public holidays or other holidays in lieu thereof, which is legally required under the Hong Kong Labor Ordinance. The security guards had gone many years without receiving public holidays. The school initially denied not giving security guards public holidays. Indeed, at a time when the school was not even in compliance with the minimum standards set by the law, the schools business manager argued that the schools treatment of security guards was as good as or better than that of other international schools. In the very same month that the school was presented with the evidence that it had not been granting security guards public holidays and denied that that was the case, it began to give the security guards public holidays in accordance with the law. In August 2011, a teacher who had brought the non-compliance with the law to the attention of the school was issued a letter of reprimand and threatened with dismissal. Also in August, the security guards requested compensation for the years of public holidays they had not received. The schools initial response was to offer the security guards the holidays they had not received. After negotiation, in December 2011, the school and the security guards agreed a compensation amount that, while lower than what the security guards had requested, was accepted by them. RECOMMENDATIONS

Significantly reduce the work hours of security guards while maintaining their salary at the current level. In the absence of a law on maximum work hours in Hong Kong, use laws regarding maximum work hours in other jurisdictions as a guideline in determining international standards in developed economies for reasonable limitations on work hours. 2. Faculty

The 2011-2012 school year saw an apparent worsening of working conditions and terms of employment and appointment for teachers. In August 2011, at the all-faculty meeting beginning the school year, the head of school announced his opposition to a faculty association, deeming it not in the interests of CIS. This was in response to several calls and proposals by faculty during the 2010-2011 school year for a faculty association and for inclusion in decision-making. Not only was it a disappointing and insufficient response to the many faculty efforts to be included in decision-making and to improve faculty-administration relations, but the position of the head of school stands in opposition to the basic human right to form and join independent unions (International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, Article 22), as well as to Hong Kong law (Basic Law, Article 27). It has an intimidating effect on faculty. 21

As detailed in the section Lack of democratic decision-making processes, CIS faculty have no representation of any kind. There is no faculty representation on the Board of Governors. There is no faculty association. Teachers on the CISPTA committee are selected by the school administration, not by the faculty. Faculty meetings are not run by the faculty but by the administration. Rarely does the administration call for requests for agenda items. In response to calls for reform of faculty meetings, the administration organized a session for faculty in August 2011 to discuss how to improve meetings. Many suggestions were made, but there was no clear outcome, and meetings have continued to run as they have in previous years. In the past, the administration has claimed that Heads of Department represent faculty at Heads of Department meetings, but Heads of Department are supervisors, and they are appointed by the administration to be responsible for their departments, not to represent faculty. The combination of complete lack of representation and lack of role in formal decision-making structures and processes is of especially grave concern at an educational institution, since it is primarily the faculty with educational expertise and with the most in-depth and detailed knowledge of education at the school. Within the 2011-2012 year, the administration has taken several actions that have worsened working conditions and terms of employment for a significant number of staff. Of particular concern is that the administration has taken initiatives to change working conditions of faculty without consulting the faculty. The terms of appointment of Heads of Department were changed without consultation with Heads of Department. The new terms were presented to Heads of Department at a Heads of Department meeting. They did not appear on the meeting agenda but were presented as all-other-business item at the end of the meeting. What appeared to be initial moves to revamp the Pastoral Office were made without the involvement of the Pastoral Team. A survey regarding pastoral matters which all students had to fill out was created by a consultant without the participation of the Pastoral Team. Heads of Year protested at their lack of involvement. The school administrations intentions and plans regarding the Pastoral Office were never presented to the faculty. One teacher was offered a one-year contract without explanation, even though a two-year contract is standard. In the 2010-2011 school year, three teachers were offered one-year contracts, also without explanation. This appears to be an effort to circumvent the procedures in the Teachers Handbook for cases in which teachers have been appraised as falling below standards. In none of the cases was a clear verbal or written explanation given for offering the non-standard one-year contract. In one case, repeated requests by the teacher for an explanation did not receive an answer from the school administration. As noted in Lack of fair and transparent disciplinary procedures, one teacher was issued a formal letter of reprimand on a vague charge of unprofessionalism and threatened with dismissal, without due process. The exact status of the formal letter of reprimand is unclear, since it was issued outside of any recognized disciplinary process, indeed because there is no recognized disciplinary process. The teacher was not previously notified that the teacher was under investigation or faced accusations, and the teacher was given no recourse to 22

appeal. The threat of dismissal hangs over the teacher indefinitely. This occurrence points to the absence of even rudimentary procedures to ensure due process or provide staff with recourse in cases of unfair treatment. RECOMMENDATIONS Allow and encourage an independent faculty association in conformity with international and Hong Kong law. Do not offer non-standard one-year contracts. In cases in which non-standard contracts are offered, provide a written explanation of the reason for the non-standard contract. Consult faculty when considering changes in terms of employment and appointment, and present proposed changes for discussion before making a final decision. Implement procedures ensuring due process in disciplinary cases. Involve teacher representatives in disciplinary processes in order to ensure transparency and accountability. Implement grievance procedures in line with international norms which provide recourse in cases of unfair treatment. 3. Impact of school practices upon workers not employed by the school. Beyond responsibility for workers under their employment, modern organizations also have a responsibility to ensure that their practices do not harm the rights of workers elsewhere, whether directly or indirectly. This is a matter of social responsibility to the immediate community and the rest of the world with which the school is in relationship through its purchases and consumption. In the 2011-2012 school year, the secondary school began to implement a one-to-one laptop program, entering into a contract with Apple to provide equipment and support. Before entering into the contract, it did not conduct due diligence on impact on labor conditions or the environment. In the same year, much publicity was directed to poor working conditions in factories that produce many Apple products. In April 2012, A representative from SACOM, one of the leading organizations that have investigated working conditions in Foxconn factories where many Apple products are produced, gave a talk at the school. It was not attended by anyone from the school administration. While the school cannot be held directly responsible for abuses of workers rights committed by others, and while such abuses are endemic across the electronics industry, the school has a responsibility to: a) Conduct social and environmental due diligence before entering into a significant agreement with a corporation supplying it with products or services, and b) once 23

the school has entered into such an agreement, to track the record of the provider and bring to its attention any issues regarding labor conditions and environmental degradation. If significant measures are not taken by the contractor to improve the situation, then CIS must consider withdrawing from its relationship with the company in question. RECOMMENDATIONS Regularly conduct an audit of the effects of CIS practices on rights of workers elsewhere. Develop a practice of due diligence examining environmental and labor impact when entering into significant contracts with suppliers. Develop a social and environmental responsibility policy. 4. China Center

Due diligence and social and environmental responsibility are of particular relevance given that CIS will soon be employing workers at its China Center in Hangzhou. CIS should have clear guidelines in employing workers there which ensure the protection of their rights. The workers must be allowed to form independent unions to represent themselves. Given the prevalence of labor abuses on the mainland, if CIS does not have guidelines and safeguards in place, it risks placing itself in situations in which it itself may commit labor abuses or is complicit in their commission by others. There have been rumors of atwo-tier pay scale, one for mainland workers and one for foreign workers. This would be discriminatory and not in conformity with the international law stipulating the right to equal pay for equal work (Article 23). Because staffing plans for the China Centre have not been articulated, it is unclear how they may affect staffing decisions at CIS. Already this year, a substantial amount of time and effort has been spent by CIS teachers on planning and discussions related to the China Center. In the absence of clear articulation of plans, fears exist that plans for the China Center could lead to cuts in staffing at CIS or deterioration in working conditions. RECOMMENDATIONS Develop guidelines regarding employment of workers at the China Center in Hangzhou with special care taken to ensure that their rights are respected. Do not employ a so-called two-tier system according to which Chinese employees would be on a different pay scale from non-Chinese employees. All employees should be on the same pay scale for their job positions (ie, all teachers on the same teachers pay scale). The right to equal pay for equal work should be respected. 24

Clearly articulate staffing plans for the China Center as well as staffing plans for CIS. Do so in collaboration with the faculty through faculty representatives chosen by the faculty. Conclusion CIS can be in the forefront of labor practices in a region of the world in which there is much room for improvement in that area, but it will require a paradigm shift and prioritization of the issue. A school is truly only as good as its people, both staff and students. CIS has the resources to provide the best working conditions and to welcome workers into its decision- making processes, but it currently does not show the inclination or willpower to do so. Not only is it letting its workers down in this respect, it is also letting itself down and failing to manage its workers in such a way as to create the best possible school.

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HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION The final clause of the preamble of the UDHR states every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance. While human rights education was not identified as a particular weakness at CIS, it was included in the 2010 Human Rights Audit amongst cross-cutting recommendations, for it was seen that one of the key ways to improve the human rights situation at CIS was to improve human rights education. Students and faculty who are more aware of human rights are more able to act to promote, ensure and defend them. Overall, 2011-2012 saw insufficient and uneven progress in human rights education at CIS, with one particular area showing significant deterioration. A number of teachers at CIS have integrated human rights education into diverse units in their subjects. Human rights are also a unit in Year 10 Choices, and human-rights-related issues are addressed in Choices sessions in other years. Several co-curricular groups work on human-rights-related issues. The Human Rights Group cooperates with teachers to conduct peer-to-peer education sessions on various human rights in diverse subjects. In 2011-2012, it organized six different campaigns involving a diversity of activities and also had smaller opportunities for students outside of the group to learn about human rights and participate in activities promoting human rights. In this sense, it can be said that secondary students gain some exposure to and knowledge of human rights. However, the quality of the education varies. Students have been critical in particular of the Year 10 Choices sessions on human rights. The school as an institution has taken little initiative to ensure the presence of comprehensive, high-quality human rights education throughout the secondary school. Apart from the teaching of human rights in discrete subjects and co-curricular activities, one of the most effective means of teaching human rights is living in a culture committed to human rights. In this respect, the main thing the school can do to improve other main lack in provision of human rights education is to promote a culture of respect for human rights. Students are often presented with human-rights-related issues as something distant from themselves and their own lives. In addition, these issues are often presented not as human rights issues per se but as terrible situations involving victims who deserve first and foremost the students pity and charity, not their own rights. The school failed in its responsibility to provide education on LGBT rights and actively prevented others from doing so. Human-rights-related issues are addressed in many academic subjects. According to a survey conducted by the Human Rights Group, most students reported to have discussed human rights in Geography, History and English. Human-rights-related education was also reported to have occurred in Art, Chinese, Drama and Music as well as in homerooms. However, similar to last year, the only place in the curriculum in which human rights are directly addressed and presented is in a unit in Year 10 Choices. In the survey, many Year 10 students reported finding it difficult to relate the issues presented in Year 10 Choices. Overall, the majority of students who completed the survey found that human rights education in classes was 26

satisfactory to highly effective. 60.7% of students report that their attitudes towards human rights have changed after discussions in class. Although the results from the survey suggest that CIS teachers are doing a satisfactory job in addressing human rights in their classes, as the audit states, To a great extent, students will be more receptive to the efforts of fellow students to discuss human rights than to those of staff. There is greater potential for peer-to-peer human rights education. For example, a Year 10 English class does a unit on the UDHR in which each student gives an individual presentation on an article in the UDHR. This could be adapted for Year 10 Choices. In an attempt to build on human rights education initiatives in the 2010-2011 academic year, the Human Rights Group proposed to the Pastoral Office leading Choices sessions on LGBT issues, as it had led a successful session in Year 11 Choices the year before. The Pastoral Office did not take the Human Rights Group up on the proposal, saying that all Choices sessions for the year had already been booked. The Human Rights Groups offer to teachers to visit classes to present human rights issues linked to coursework received less uptake in the 2011-2012 academic year than in 2010-2011. Much peer-to-peer education on human rights takes place informally at CIS but without the involvement of teachers. A particular problem at CIS was lack of school initiative in the area of LGBT education coupled with its blocking of other initiatives in LGBT education. The Pastoral Office was alerted to prevalent use of homophobic slurs especially among younger secondary students early in the 2010-2011. Apart from morning assemblies about not using bad words which were ineffective in reducing the incidence of homophobic slurs, it took no action. Later in the year, it discouraged a staff-student initiative to form a gay-straight alliance, which has elsewhere proven to be one of the most effective ways of dealing with homophobic bullying, harassment and name-calling. An LGBT Week was held by the Human Rights Group in 2010-2011. It was temporarily effective in reducing the incidence of homophobic slurs. It received very positive feedback both informally and through formal evaluation. In 2011-2012, the school prevented the Human Rights Group from calling its week-long series of events LGBT Week. It changed the name to Respect for All Week and organized an all-school assembly. Its effort lacked educational substance, and the change in name of the week ignored the fact that the LGBT Week was a human rights event, not a respect event. It prevented Year 7 to Year 9 students from attending some LGBT events, claiming that they were not age appropriate but developed no age appropriate educational materials and took no age appropriate educational initiatives of its own.

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RECOMMENDATIONS Set up a human rights education task force made up of faculty and students with the purpose of ensuring a coherent, high-quality human rights education program taught throughout the secondary school at all levels. The task force would map existing efforts, identify gaps, and propose ways of addressing deficiencies. It would evaluate progress on a regular basis and report to the faculty meeting and the head of secondary. Encourage peer-to-peer human rights education by, for example, soliciting proposals for Choices and Learning Enhancement sessions as part of the planning and scheduling of these sessions. Choices and Learning Enhancement provide good opportunities for peer- to-peer education and are currently not used enough for that. Hold professional development sessions on human rights education, where teachers can share their experiences teaching human rights and discuss ways to improve human rights education. Mainstream LGBT education explicitly into existing units on human rights, sexuality, tolerance and respect, and allow independent school groups to conduct LGBT education without interference.

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LACK OF FAIR AND TRANSPARENT DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURES The lack of fair and transparent disciplinary procedures at CIS relates to the so-called due process rights in the UDHRArticle 8, right to effective remedy; Article 9, right to freedom from arbitrary disciplinary action; Article 10, right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal; and Article 11, right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. In the 2010 CIS Human Rights Audit, survey respondents gave CIS a mixed rating in the areas of fair, impartial treatment in the determination of guilt and assignment of punishment and presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The Audit stated, There are perceptions that favoritism [on the part of the school administration] exists based on a students academic reputation and/or the socio-economic status of the students family. These areas, while in need of improvement, were not classified as amongst those of greatest weakness. However, events since then have revealed a lack of consistency in initiation and application of disciplinary action, lack of transparency in disciplinary processes, and that the initiation and application of disciplinary are largely arbitrary. It is unclear how the school administration determines the gravity of an alleged offense. In judging infractions, the school administration often makes broad statements with no clear correspondence to policies governing discipline and behavior and invokes documents that lack specificity and do not relate primarily to disciplinary matters such as the CIS Mission Statement. Current disciplinary procedures and practices are arbitrary and inconsistent, and they lack transparency. Except for school administration, no members of the CIS community have a role in serious disciplinary procedures. This damages the confidence of the CIS community in the fairness of disciplinary actions and creates the widespread perception of bias, favoritism and frequent conflict of interest. The school has no disciplinary, grievance or conflict resolution procedures for staff, though such are standard practice in a modern workplace. There were not as many instances as in the previous year of students being disciplined unfairly, though there was an instance of a teacher being unfairly disciplined. The arbitrary, opaque disciplinary procedures and practices were largely responsible for the controversy surrounding a case of alleged academic dishonesty which resulted in the unprecedented situation of the head of school sending a message to the CIS community on the matter and a member of the Board of Governors suing a parent for libel. If anything, this should signal clearly to the school the need to reform this area of school practice, but when the Student Council attempted to raise the matter with the head of secondary, reform in this area was rejected. At the same time, the school administration pressed ahead with drafting an Honor Code, even though it had been told by both students and faculty that such a code could not be properly considered except within the context of discussions of reform of disciplinary procedures and practices. Whilst appearing rational and transparent, the current disciplinary procedures in application are based on arbitrary judgments and are at the sole discretion of the school administration. Current disciplinary procedures for student offenses are divided into five levels of seriousness. 29

The disciplinary procedures for offenses at each level are stated clearly. The grounds for increasing the level of an offense are as follows: If such action fails to produce the desired effect, or if the offence is more serious, then the student will move to level [x]. There are no criteria for determining the seriousness of an offense, and thus the mechanism is arbitrary. Furthermore, even the procedures for individual levels appear to be ignored in practice. In the Friday Morning News incident (see Censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression for details), in which students were reprimanded for showing allegedly inappropriate content in a Friday Morning News video, the students were confronted in class directly by the head of secondary. Such an interview appears in the procedures only for serious cases that may lead to a level 5 consequence, but none of the six other steps listed in that section was taken, and it is debatable whether or not the interview was really conducted in a manner that cannot be construed as coercive. In fact, the direct summoning of students by the administration, followed by the demand that the student in question write a reflective statement, seems to be the norm. The consequences of the lack of confidence in the fairness of disciplinary procedures was apparent when, during the first semester of the 2011-2012 academic year, the school administration attempted to draft an Honor Code (see Lack of democratic decision-making processes for details). There was significant opposition to the Honor Code for various reasons, a major one being lack of confidence on the part of students in the disciplinary process. A Moongate article on December 8 said this about the proposed Honor Code: There is likely to be a lot of unintentional abuse, with teachers using it to force values they deem responsible on students. The more frightening prospect is, however, intentional abuse, involving staff members using the code to suit certain policy agendas. The administrations statement that any eventual Honor Code will not have a disciplinary function but will promote self-enforcement together with students concerns about this matter indicate that more transparent disciplinary measures are necessary. The lack of confidence in disciplinary procedures and practices was exacerbated when the head of school sent an unprecedented letter to parents concerning a case of alleged academic dishonesty. The letter was written to address the widespread speculation that [the student in question] had been given special consideration because of his status as Head Boy and even that his fathers position as CIS governor had contributed to the affair having been swept under the rug. The letter stated that there was no evidence of academic dishonesty, and the matter was dismissed. The head of school was correct to discern that there was widespread skepticism that the case was being dealt with fairly. The skepticism was an outcome of the common perception of arbitrary application of disciplinary policies. The incident escalated to the point where a parent was sued by the parent of the student in question, a CIS governor. Fair, transparent disciplinary procedures would inspire confidence on the part of the CIS community in the schools handling of disciplinary matters, and thus avoid such regrettable conflict and widespread suspicion. Indeed, the schools handling of such matters has to some extent undermined its integrity. 30

The Student Council approached the head of secondary with a request to reform disciplinary policies and procedures, but the request was rejected out of hand. In doing so, the head of secondary ignored a major concern of a large number of not only students but also faculty. When the school administration brought up the matter of an Honor Code, many students and faculty said that such a code could not be considered outside of the context of how disciplinary matters were handled. The presumption of innocence until proof of guilt is the proclaimed standard at CIS, in keeping with international human rights norms and laws. But in practice, on numerous occasions, students have felt compelled by school administration to write incriminating self-reflections, presuming guilt. To cite one example, a student was called in to meet the head of secondary. When the student arrived at the appointed time, the head of secondary said he had to attend another meeting and the student should wait for him, though the other meeting was not due to start for 25 minutes. He asked for the students mobile phone. The student said he would keep the mobile phone in his backpack. The head of secondary took the backpack from the student. The student was then made to wait for one hour and a half until the head of secondary returned from the other meeting. This amounts to incommunicado arbitrary detention, which in effect presumes guilt. It transpired that the student had been called into the head of secondary about a satirical poem the student had written about a member of staff and posted on Facebook. Whatever the taste or fairness of the poem, it was not libelous or defamatory, yet the student was asked to write a reflection on his actions. He was then asked to meet with the member of staff the poem was about. He was threatened with punitive action, including suspension, even though it was unclear whether or not he had broken any school rule. A number of disciplinary cases have involved students who have expressed criticism of school policies. This presents an issue of conflict of interest on the part of the school administration which is on the one hand responsible for school policy and on the other presumes to handle fairly disciplinary matters involving criticism of its policies. Fairness would dictate that the school administration recuse itself from involvement in disciplinary matters in such cases, but there is no transparent disciplinary committee or other mechanisms or provisions to which such cases can be referred. As a result, confidence in the fairness of disciplinary action is again undermined by the perception that the school administration is more interested in defending itself from criticism or intimidating students to not express criticism than in fair adjudication. In the past year, there has also been a case of the school administration unfairly disciplining a teacher. In August 2011, the head of school sent a letter by post accusing a teacher of inappropriate and unprofessional behavior involving criticism of school administration and school policies. Three instances were referred to, only one of which the head of school had previously discussed with the teacher. In that case, the head of school assured the teacher that it was not a disciplinary matter. The other two instances, one of which occurred more than half a year before the letter, had never been discussed by the school administration with the teacher. In all three cases, the teacher had legitimate concerns about school actions and policies. The letter was called a letter of reprimand, but no one had ever heard of such a 31

letter before and therefore did not know its status. There was no due process either before or after the letter was sent. The teacher had no opportunity to defend himself against the accusations. The letter concluded with a threat of dismissal. The threat had no expiration date, and therefore, essentially, ever since the teachers employment has been in limbo. The unfair treatment shows the need for clear disciplinary procedures for staff. There are currently none. Nor does the school have grievance or conflict resolution procedures. In the absence of such, as in the case of student discipline, there is the perception of arbitrary action and conflict of interest on the part of school administration. Disciplinary, grievance and conflict resolution policies are considered standard practice in modern places of employment. They are intended to ensure fair and equal treatment. Students and teachers are often accused of acting or speaking inappropriately or, in the case of staff, unprofessionally. These are inherently subjective determinations, and therefore are better addressed by discussion than by punishment. Unless the school administration can clearly point to a specific rule being broken, it should refrain from acting in a disciplinary or punitive manner. Accusing students and staff of inappropriateness and unprofessionalism feeds perceptions of arbitrary treatment. RECOMMENDATIONS

Revisit and reform disciplinary procedures to ensure their fairness. Discuss amongst administration and faculty how disciplinary matters will be handled so that there is a common understanding. Clearly articulate each step of the disciplinary process and ensure that there is an effective appeals process as part of it. Ensure that students and staff facing disciplinary procedures are charged with clear and recognizable infractions. Refrain from invoking the Mission Statement or other vaguely worded documents in alleging misbehavior or infraction. Set up a student disciplinary committee with administration, faculty and student members. All disciplinary matters will be referred to the committee, with the head of secondary reserving the right to make the ultimate decision on disciplinary matters. Provide students accused of disciplinary infractions with the option to choose a student advocate as witness and to advise them in the disciplinary process. Articulate staff disciplinary, grievance and conflict resolution procedures. Do so in collaboration with staff. Set up a staff disciplinary, grievance and conflict resolution committee with wide representation, which will be involved in determining such matters.

Ensure that members of student and staff disciplinary committees recuse themselves in instances in which they are involved in a potential or perceived conflict of interest.

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INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE OF LGBT IDENTITY This issue is related specifically to Article 2 of the UDHR: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. In this case, other status encompasses sexual orientation and sexual identity. In addition, non-discrimination is one of the underlying principles of the UDHR and of international human rights law and standards in general. Over the past two years, a pattern of institutional discrimination on the part of the school against people of LGBT identity has emerged at CIS. Part of the discrimination involves the schools failure to recognize the pattern even when repeatedly presented with evidence of it. Institutional discrimination often involves no overt intention by individuals to discriminate but emerges through a pattern of acts of commission or omission which are discriminatory in their effect. In detecting a pattern of institutional discrimination at CIS against people of LGBT identity, this report emphasizes that it does not accuse any individuals at CIS of intentionally discriminating against LGBT individuals. Rather, this report asserts that a pattern of discrimination is clear and demonstrable and that regardless of intent, the effect is discriminatory. This report detects no evidence of discrimination in recruitment or employment practices. However, some teachers have said they would be happy to speak at LGBT events but fear doing so in light of the fact that the school has no anti-discrimination policy. In Hong Kong, there is no legal protection against workplace discrimination unless it falls under certain categories (sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability, family status and race)5 which do not include sexual orientation or sexual identity. The Hong Kong LGBT Climate Survey 2011-20126 conducted by Community Business HK found, Most of the working population think it is unacceptable to discriminate against homosexual, bisexual or transgender employees, but a majority in the latter group say they feel discriminated against at work.7 Due to lack of adequate legislation and the fact that LGBT people feel discriminated against in the workplace, it is all the more important that individual employers such as CIS ensure that their employees are protected against discrimination. The pattern of institutional discrimination on the part of the school administration includes the following items, many of which have been mentioned and described in detail in other parts of this report: 5 Rather than having an overarching anti-discrimination ordinance, the Hong Kong government has opted for individual ordinances in certain areas: the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO), the Disability Discrimination Ordinance (DDO) and the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance (FSDO), and the Race Discrimination Ordinance (RDO). 6 http://www.communitybusiness.org.hk/ 7 Mixed messages for gays in workforce, South China Morning Post, Thursday, May 17, 2012;
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=a98eed e63b557310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Hong+Kong&s=News

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Failure to deal effectively with students prevalent use of homophobic slurs even when requested to do so Failure to provide effective anti-homophobic bullying and discrimination and LGBT rights education even when requested to do so Reluctance to make use of considerable faculty expertise on discrimination and LGBT education even when it is offered Prevention of and interference in independent initiatives having to do with LGBT education, in particular a faculty-student initiative to start a gay-straight alliance and refusal to allow a series of LGBT education events to be called LGBT Week, even though labeling a series of events LGBT Week went against no rules or guidelines and a number of other series of events were called weeks or the like such as UNRWA Week and Tibetan Film Festival Barring of Year 7 to Year 9 students from attending some of the above-mentioned events on grounds of age inappropriateness while at the same time creating no age appropriate LGBT education of its own even though many opportunities for doing so exist in the Choices program, which includes topics on sexuality, identity, tolerance, respect and anti-harassment and anti-bullying Blocking at least 64 websites of prominent and highly respected LGBT rights advocacy and education organizations, and refusing to acknowledge a discriminatory pattern of blocking when presented with the evidence

The school has been consistently alerted to these problems since early in the 2010-2011 school year, yet refuses to recognize the pattern, let alone take action. In early 2010, a number of teachers reported to the Pastoral Office the problem of prevalent use of homophobic slurs amongst younger secondary students. The Heads of Year organized year assemblies at which they emphasized the inappropriateness of using bad words and slurs. The assemblies were ineffective because they did not deal with the specific problem of homophobic slurs. No decrease in the incidence of homophobic slurs was noticed, and no follow-up was initiated. The Human Rights Group decided to deal with the problem by staging an LGBT Week. It was told that Heads of Year had decided that it was inappropriate for Years 7 to 9 to attend some of the events, even though the events were organized with the purpose, among others, of raising their awareness of the problem. The April 2011 LGBT Week was an educational success, and yet efforts for a successor in April 2012 were met with resistance from the school administration. In September 2011, the Human Rights Group informed the school administration of all of its major events for the year including LGBT Week. At the beginning of February 2012, the Human Rights Group submitted a proposal for approval to the Pastoral Office in regard to two events that needed coordination with school administration, a Dress Rainbow Day and a Day of Silence. The proposal included a list of all of its events for the week. The head of the Pastoral Office 34

responded verbally, approving the Dress Rainbow Day but saying she needed more details on the Day of Silence. The details were provided. In the middle of March, less than two school weeks before LGBT Week was to begin, the school administration called representatives of the group to a meeting at which it informed the group that it believed the best way to deal with the issue was a comprehensive approach. What it meant by that was what it called a Respect for All Week. The group pointed out that one reason for the LGBT Week was that there were specific problems at CIS regarding LGBT issues. (This was in the wake of the report to the school administration about the blocking of LGBT websites.) It also said the LGBT events were rights events, not respect events, so the approach was significantly different. The administration insisted on its position, essentially prohibiting the group from calling its activities LGBT Week. The group agreed to carry out its activities that week but not call them LGBT Week. The school called the week Respect for All Week and organized an all-school assembly on the theme, while the group carried out its LGBT rights events. Years 7 to 9 were again prohibited by the school administration from attending one of the main events, a discussion forum. In none of its communications with the CIS community in which Respect for All Week was mentioned did the school administration mention LGBT events, even though all of the events during the week were LGBT events with the exception of the all-school assembly and the Dress Rainbow Day, which the school administration appropriated from the group, saying that students should dress rainbow to show respect for all. The irony of Respect for All Week is profound. Since the Human Rights Group was not allowed to hold a series of LGBT rights events under the banner LGBT Week, it is difficult for the school to argue that it respects LGBT rights. This came weeks after the school had denied a discriminatory pattern of blocking of LGBT rights advocacy and education websites in the face of ever-increasing evidence to the contrary. Amongst students and staff who were aware of what the school was doing, the move was widely criticized and lampooned, the result being low respect for Respect for All Week. After the week, a teacher requested that the issue be discussed at a faculty meeting so as to achieve consensus and be better prepared for next year. The request has as of yet received no response from the school administration. It is hard to think of another situation in which the school took a series of events organized by a school group, forbade its use of title to describe those events, and then pasted its title over them. The misconceptions expressed shown by school administration in its handling of the blocking of LGBT rights advocacy and education websites, its silencing of LGBT Week, its lack of efforts to effectively address identified problems in the school and provide LGBT education, and its prevention of and interference with other initiatives to provide LGBT education point to the need for staff training on anti-discrimination and rights in general and in this area in particular. School administration described LGBT orientation and identity as a lifestyle choice and as outside of social norms, terms not employed in educated discourse on the issue. In a year in which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a landmark speech on gay rights to the United Nations, US President Barack Obama voiced his support for same-sex marriage rights, and even a conservative group in Hong Kong, Regina Ips New Peoples Party, formally 35

included a plank on equal rights for LGBT people in its platform, CIS has willfully chosen to stick its head in the sand and pretend the issue doesnt exist. In doing so, it is failing in its educational responsibilities. RECOMMENDATIONS

Enact an anti-discrimination policy for recruitment and employment, involving all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity as well as sex, race, nationality, disability, and political and religious belief. Form a task force made up of administration, teachers and students to investigate institutional discrimination of LGBT people at CIS. Form a task force made up of administration, teachers and students to develop LGBT education, much of which will involve mainstreaming LGBT education in existing education on human rights, sexuality, identity, anti-bullying and anti-discrimination. Form an IT task force made of up of administration, teachers and students to pro-actively monitor blocking of LGBT rights advocacy and education websites by the schools subscription filtering service. Allow school groups to independently organize events and activities without interference which are within the bounds of school regulations and guidelines.

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APPENDIX 1 Report on the CIS Human Rights Audit (http://www.scribd.com/doc/57974052/CIS-Human-Rights-Audit-June-2010). Progress report http://www.scribd.com/doc/57978539/Progress-Report-June-2011-on-the-CIS-Human- Rights-Audit

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APPENDIX 2 List of blocked LGBT rights advocacy and education sites as of February 16, 2012 Note: The following list was sent on February 14 to the school administration as part of a petition by particularly concerned and affected students and teachers. Previous to the petition, the school administration had said that no pattern of blocking LGBT sites had been demonstrated since there are over 360million unique websites (recent estimate) on the World Wide Web (way way way over a trillion unique webpages are indexed by Google). you and the HR team have identified less than 15 (sic) which were blocked. Granted, a very small percentage of the 360m feature LGBT content, but it is unreasonable to assume that the filtering displays a decidedly "discriminatory pattern" given those numbers. This statement failed to take into consideration that the most well-known and reputable LGBT rights advocacy and education websites have been blocked by the school. When requested, the IT Department has un-blocked sites, but some of these were later found to be blocked again (thus, the current status column below). Website URL Current Date Submitted Status 1 16.9.2010 Human Rights Campaign hrc.org Unblocked
2 16.9.2010 3 16.9.2010 4 16.9.2010 5 12.10.2010 6 12.10.2010 7 12.10.2010 8 12.10.2010 9 12.10.2010 10 12.10.2010 11 12.10.2010 12 12.10.2010 13 12.10.2010 14 13.1.2011 Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby glrl.org.au Unblocked National Gay and Lesbian Task Force thetaskforce.org Unblocked International Gay & Lesbian Human iglhrc.org Unblocked Rights Commission Christian Gays http://christiangays.com Unblocked The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & http://www.gaycenter.org/ Unblocked Transgender Community Center San Francisco LGBT Community http://www.sfcenter.org Unblocked Center GLBT Teens gayteens.about.com Unblocked SoulForce www.soulforce.org Blocked Facts: Gay and Lesbian Youth in data.lambdalegal.org/pdf/158.pdf Unblocked Schools Gay Family Support www.gayfamilysupport.com/ Unblocked Lesbian Information Service: www.lesbianinformationservice.org Blocked Challenging Homophobia National Youth Advocacy Coalition www.nyacyouth.org Unblocked Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education www.glsen.org Unblocked Network

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15 18.2.2011 16 18.2.2011

http://www.dayofsilence.org/ http://www.aeinstein.org 17 14.10.2011 Queer Cultural Center www.queerculturalcenter.org/ 18 14.10.2011 Queer Arts Resource http://www.queer-arts.org/ 19 2.2.2012 The Advocate www.advocate.com 20 2.2.2012 Feministing feministing.com 21 2.2.2012 Jezebel jezebel.com 22 2.2.2012 Queerty queerty.com 23 2.2.2012 Parents, Families, and Friends of www.pflag.org Lesbians and Gays 24 2.2.2012 Marriage Equality USA www.marriageequality.org 25 2.2.2012 Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against www.glaad.org Defamation 26 2.2.2012 Dignity USA www.dignityusa.org 27 13.2.2012 National Coalition for LGBT Health www.lgbthealth.net 28 13.2.2012 LGBTQ Center (UNC-Chapel Hill) lgbt.unc.edu/ 29 13.2.2012 Milwaukee LGBT Community Center www.mkelgbt.org/ 30 13.2.2012 Consortium of LGBT Voluntary and www.lgbtconsortium.org.uk/ Community Organizations 31 13.2.2012 The Community of LGBT Centers www.lgbtcenters.org/ 32 13.2.2012 San Diego LGBT Pride sdpride.org/ 33 13.2.2012 LA Gay and Lesbian Center www.laglc.org/ 34 13.2.2012 Services and Advocacy for GLBT www.sageusa.org Elders 35 13.2.2012 Transgender Care www.transgendercare.com 36 13.2.2012 Transgender Forum Community www.transgender.org/ Center 37 13.2.2012 Transgender Zone www.transgenderzone.com/ 38 13.2.2012 Transgender Law Center transgenderlawcenter.org/

Day of Silence Albert Einstein Institution

Unblocked Unblocked Blocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked

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39 13.2.2012 40 13.2.2012 41 13.2.2012 42 14.2.2012 43 14.2.2012 44 14.2.2012 45 14.2.2012 46 14.2.2012 47 14.2.2012 48 14.2.2012 49 14.2.2012 50 14.2.2012 51 14.2.2012 52 14.2.2012 53 14.2.2012 54 16.2.2012 55 16.2.2012 56 16.2.2012 57 16.2.2012 58 16.2.2012 59 16.2.2012 60 16.2.2012 61 16.2.2012 62 16.2.2012 63 16.2.2012 64 16.2.2012

Transgender Michigan www.transgendermichigan.org Transgender Forum www.tgforum.com/ Transgender Legal www.transgenderlegal.com/ Lambda Legal http://www.lambdalegal.org/ Dallas Voice: Media Source for LGBT http://www.dallasvoice.com/ Texas After Ellen afterellen.com After Elton afterelton.com Gay Youth Corner www.thegyc.com Curve Magazine www.curvemag.com Alice B Toklas Democratic Club www.alicebtoklas.org BiNet USA www.binetusa.org Empire State Pride Agenda www.prideagenda.org Freedom To Marry www.freedomtomarry.org Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund www.victoryfund.org Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance www.glaa.org National Center for Lesbian Rights www.nclrights.org Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus hglc.org Colage People with a LGBTQ Parent Colage.org Egale Canada Egale.ca Outsports outsports.com Out Magazine out.com PlanetOut planetout.com NYC Pride nycpride.org/ Pride London www.pridelondon.org/ LA Pride www.lapride.org Seattle Pride www.seattlepride.org/

Unblocked Unblocked Unblocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Unblocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Unblocked Unblocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked Blocked

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APPENDIX 3 Human Rights Education Survey (37 Responses)

Have human rights issues been discussed in class? Yes No 29 8 78% 22%

If so, which classes in particular? (ex. Choices, English, History...)

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

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If your answer to question 1 is yes, please give examples of issues discussed.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Other (See Graph Above) Tibet Racism Civil Rights Enlightenment Uganda

Holocaust Occupy Movement Maritime Disputes Foreign Domestic Workers

How effective were the lessons/discussions? 1 -Extremely Ineffective 2 3 4 5 -I learned a lot 2 5% 4 11% 8 22% 9 24% 12 32%

Extremely Ineffective I learned a lot

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Has your attitude changed since these issues were discussed in class? 1 -Not at all 2 3 4 5 -Completely 5% 7 19% 13 35% 9 24% 4 11%

Not at all

Completely

What have you learned from Human Rights related class discussion? (1 example is sufficient))

Not much I haven't learned knowledge (as in hard facts), but I have learned about different opinions that my classmates have. This is very interesting. Rights are still not equal for everyone. n/a Broadened my awareness I learnt a lot more about the world and about political systems and how they affect the rights of civilians. Tibetan people are being suppressed and the Chinese people are unaware of it None.

I learned that we should treat everyone like we should treat ourselves, everyone is equal.

We have learnt that "In God's eyes, everyone is equal" That every person should have the right to have water. -all people deserve their own rights That it is hard to maintain an equality in society. That people are FORCED to be illegal in order to save their family's. Many people around the world don't have water. I have learned that their are lots of kids that have no rights because they are under control I learned that human rights have impacted our world, because without human rights, our world would be controlled by the ruler, and not the residents. We learn't that human rights are not just a thing people want but a thing people need.

Learning more about people like Gloria Steinem and Szeto Wah N/A

I guess I just learned the extent to which human rights are essential and fundamental to human development.

That CIS censors pro-LGBT websites but not anti-LGBT websites. how people around the world live I have learnt that I do not have to use so much water every day, and that people are suffering across the globe everyday. I've learn't from own research that a lot of places don't have them. i didn't discuss any

From the discussions that we had in geography I have learn't to try to have shorter showers and less baths. I found out that there are many people without water. mainly that some people are interested in arguing just for the sake of it. haha, no, we did learn something, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, LGBTQ bullying and Women's Rights, although not really through discussion but simple exercises. I didn't learn anything new. The problem of gender inequality is still present. I have learnt more about the affects of violating a persons human rights.

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I learned that if humans want to make water a human right again, then we will need to save water and only use the amount needed to be used. we have learnt that not all are considered equal Joseph Kony

Many people don't have access to water even though water is supposed to be a free supply. i learnt that the water issues are really important as we should really be saving water.

Have you attended any Human Rights Group Events this year? Yes No 16 21 43% 57%

If you have, how effective were the human rights group sessions in educating you about human rights group issues? 1 -Extremely Ineffective 2 3 4 5 -I learned a lot 1 2 3% 5%

6 16% 4 11% 7 19%

Extremely Ineffective I learned a lot

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What human rights related issues would you like to see discussed more?

25

20

15

10

0 Worker's Rights Kony Water Crisis Poverty General LGBT Human Rights in Hong Kong Other

Other (See Graph Above) Freedom of Religion Wealth Inequality Gender Inequality Health rights Education rights Military Leaders in Africa Corrupt Politicians in America Businessmen in China Human Rights at CIS Racial Prejudice Freedom of Speech Bullying

Police Powers Special needs community in Hong Kong Children's Rights Global Human Rights Issues Food Security Torture War Right of Abode in HK Democracy Women's Rights Tibet

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How can human rights education be improved at CIS?

CIS can educate people about their basic rights in a class, possibly similar to TOK, during choices more prevalent in curriculum

Human Rights class?

Hosting grand debates on the third floor

I think that some of the useless Choices sessions that are used for nonsense things like 'kids, drugs are bad for you!' and how to save moonbears should be eliminated and used to educate students in CIS about things that ACTUALLY matter and make a difference, such as human rights education and even civil rights for that matter. possibly human rights workshops during choices? More emphasis on women's rights I think a bit more on the history of it and what rights are would be important. I would encourage more focus on local human rights issues, which will fit in with the recent chief executive elections. having some CHOICES or ENRICHMENT sessions talking about human rights ^see above People need to be more switched on with HK's socioeconomic climate and political news! There needs to be more of it. put more activities up We could discuss this more in Geography and History. teach us y7's! get teachers to discuss it more I don't know. We could discuss these matters in EVERY class. By having more discussions and movies to watch.

we could watch the video KONY 2012 because it is very inspiring We could talk about more human rights in Hong kong During Choices/Enrichment, Everyone could have a session learning about human rights, therefore having more awareness around the CIS community. I think that the human rights education can be improved by trying to introduce it into different classes and maybe try to introduce different aspect of it. I think discussions are really important and effective as the people involved will get a deeper understanding of the topic as well as being exposed to the ideas of others. I find that activities we do in Choices like reading articles and picking our favorite Human Rights Article are not so effective. Exercises like these just inspire ''oh that's sad'' or ''that's cool'' responses, but do not really provoke a thorough understanding as to why these things happen or how we can prevent them. We have a homeroom Facebook inbox, and topics like Kony or SOPA capture a bigger response, probably because it affects us. We ended up holding a 14 page long discussion about it. (but we always end up with the same people talking and the rest being excluded, or, just afk. It'd be nice to do this more in class though) Actually educate us on issues that will be relevant to us. Integrated into the curriculum Get some speakers in during choices sessions. Different classes could discuss more about human rights

??? Lessons in choices, assembly by showing assemblys. We can discuss it in Choices We can discuss human right education in CHOICES ? We could discuss more things we can have weekly discussions about human rights

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