Gay High

The class that meets in the red brick church building in New York City's Greenwich Village is like no other public education program in the country. All of the 14 boys and six girls, ages 14 to 19, say they are homosexual. The Harvey Milk School, which was quietly inaugurated in April, stirred considerable controversy when it came to light last week. Though the office of Mayor Edward Koch and other city agencies approved its establishment, many New York officials expressed surprise at the project, and questions were raised about the wisdom of funding a separate school (annual budget: $50,000) for homosexual youths. At a press conference, Schools Chancellor Nathan Quinones insisted that Harvey Milk performs a valuable service. "These are dropouts. They are not just homosexuals," Quinones said. "If it weren't for this program, they would be cruising on the West Side of Manhattan."

The program, a branch of New York's public high school system, was named in honor of the San Francisco official and homosexual activist who was murdered in 1978 along with that city's mayor, George Moscone. Housed in space rented from the Washington Square United Methodist Church, it is administered by the city's board of education in conjunction with the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth, a private advocacy group. Board of education officials pointed out last week that Harvey Milk is only one of 38 adjunct school programs in New York. Others serve drug addicts, juvenile delinquents, pregnant teens and assorted troubled children who are unwilling, or unable, to attend general public schools.

Still, some psychiatrists and educators took issue with the notion that segregating homosexual students in a separate facility is the best solution for their difficulties at other schools. In San Francisco, which has one of the largest homosexual populations in the U.S., Schools Spokesman Felix Duag doubted that his city would follow New York's example. Said Duag: "We try to mainstream students so that they have the experience of meeting boys and girls from all walks of life, because that is what they're going to do when they graduate." -

More troubling is the early age at which the Harvey Milk students have, in effect, been publicly identified as homosexuals. Can they really be certain of their sexual orientation? "No question," says Dr. Irving Bieber, author of a study of male homosexuality, who points out that the Harvey Milk students are "self-selected." But Dr. Willard Gaylin, chief of New York's Hastings Center, disagrees: "Adolescents are in a period of confusion about sexuality. The whole idea that an adolescent knows (whether he or she is homosexual) is ludicrous."