WASHINGTON -- One of North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's (R) nominees for the State Board of Education has a long history of opposing anti-bullying measures aimed at protecting LGBT students, and gay rights advocates are worried about the implications if he is confirmed.

A. L. "Buddy" Collins is an attorney and a longtime member of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board of Education. He has clashed with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) over the years surrounding the group's efforts to stop bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

"Buddy Collins has always been a retrograde voice, inimical to the interests of youth, on the school board," said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard. "He has directly tried to block efforts to fully understand [students'] experiences in the service of making things better in schools in his district."

What Byard finds most troubling about Collins' nomination is that it comes as North Carolina debates the role and expansion of publicly funded charter schools.
"All the protections we've managed to win in the public settings are going to be undermined by these alternative systems of education, and that's what I really worry about with having folks like Buddy Collins in charge," she said.