This is one in a series of profiles marking the 60th anniversary of the ACLU of Kentucky’s founding. Each week through December 2015 we will highlight the story of one member, client, case, board or staff member that has been an integral part of our organization’s rich history.
Dora James
“[The ACLU] represented the Westboro Baptist Church at one point, and they also work as an LGBT activist-type group. I think the fact that they can come full circle like that shows a lot about [the organization’s] character, and I really admire that.” -Dora James
When Dora James was a 17-year-old junior at Ohio County High School, she started the school’s first Gay/Straight Alliance club, which she intended to be a safe space for LGBT students and their allies to find support. After getting school administration approval, the club was off to a quiet start. “We knew that not every kid in high school was out to their parents, or they didn’t want it known that they were struggling with their sexual orientation,” James explained. “We decided that the group was going to start out pretty privately.”
When the club decided to put together a project about tolerance, it drew increased attention from the school and broader community–which caused problems. The club decorated a bulletin board with “student artwork and posters all about diversity: sexual orientation, racial diversity, religious diversity, etc.” James said. “We did put ‘Sponsored by OCHS Gay/Straight Alliance,’ so some students saw that, which caused kind of a clash. We had some gun threats, unfortunately, where we had to cancel some meetings.” Members of the community, including a coalition of churches, protested the GSA, and the school attempted to handle the problem by restricting the club’s actions.
“That’s when the ACLU of Kentucky came down and helped us out,” James said. “They wrote a demand letter to the school, affirming how they should handle that, and [the school] was pretty compliant because they knew that they had messed up.” James later won a national ACLU youth activism scholarship, which she partially credited to her work with the GSA. As a scholarship recipient she participated in activism training and toured the ACLU national headquarters in New York City.
James continues to be involved with the ACLU-KY on a variety of issues, and she works with the Fairness Campaign and Fairness Coalition to push for statewide fairness. “I think if there’s some kind of an issue that you feel strongly about, or you think there’s some type of an injustice or something that needs to be made better, be that person who decides to do something about it,” she said.