American schools are ground-zero for the so-called “culture war,” and that’s a good thing.

In the middle of the last century, “multiculturalism” was all but banned from public schools, especially in the South. Segregation meant that people who were visibly diverse were out of view — let alone free to express themselves — in public school settings.

Black Americans went to underfunded black schools and Native American children were often shipped off to special government-run schools that attempted to purge them of their native culture and languages. The fact that schools are now dealing with less dire issues, like a female student’s right to attend prom in a tuxedo — is a sign of incredible progress.

In that cultural battle, young people are once again on the front lines.

Why? Because adults, we know through studies and electoral trends, tend to shuffle themselves off into segregated communities when they leave school, in a phenomenon that has only increased in recent years. Conservatives gather in outlying suburban or rural areas and are more likely to stay put in the state they grew up in. Liberals head to the cities, inner suburbs and college towns. The words “red state” and “blue state” entered our vocabulary for the first time in the year 2000, when the link between American regionalism and partisanship became entrenched.

But self-segregation goes farther than that: people separate themselves into neighborhoods by race, background, interests and cultural views. They tend to work, live, and pay attention to news sources that agree with them socially and politically.

Our military performs intellectual backflips to “protect” straight soldiers from proximity to gay people, and minority groups of significance size have their own magazines and TV channels to cater to their own preferences.

It’s easy for adults to turn a blind eye to those who are different, and if you’re one of the “different” ones it’s possible to at least partially get away from the bigots. But that’s not so in schools. Most Americans are publicly-educated regardless of political stripe, and most large schools have at least a few students from a minority group. If your parents are anti-immigration, that doesn’t prevent you from sitting next to a Mexican kid without papers in History class. If you’re gay, you still strip down in the presence of the homophobes in the locker room before P.E., and the school you go to is determined by where your straight parents live, not your own choice.

Meanwhile, identity and self-awareness are major developmental issues in adolescence. Youth are more tuned-in to the abstract issues of “popularity” and “acceptance” than adults, who are more likely think of rights, politics and access policies when it comes diversity issues. But it’s the general core attitudes that kids know and discuss that help determine how they, as adults, will vote on concrete issues like same-sex marriage or the first black president.

Recently The New York Times asked how teenagers are pushing the limits in today’s schools, where brave students intentionally run up against dress codes that have gender norms inscribed. Schools and school districts are inconsistent on the issue: some schools are sending cross-dressing students home, while others tolerate or even embrace cross-gender expression. But regardless of official school policy, we know that expectations to conform (or to rebel only in peer-approved ways) are strong in high school. Young people in conservative areas who stare down harassment and threats of violence, which are only added to by antagonism from school administrators, are civil rights leaders of our time.

One paragraph in the Times article really caught my attention:

All this is too much for some educators, who say high school should not be a public stage to work out private identity issues. School, they say, is a rigorous academic and social training ground for the world of adults and employment.

I was taken aback by the sentiment, which no doubt reflects the view of some conservative-leaning school administrators across the United States. But the fact is, students already use school to work out “private identity issues” regardless of whether they are gay or straight, and any educator who is oblivious to that has no business being there. Meanwhile, if school is a “training ground for the world of adults,” all the more reason to expose children to freedom and diversity. It isn’t the role of educators to pick cultural winners and losers from the adult world and force young people to conform to their decisions.

Even in beginning of the age of same-sex marriage, male students with long hair have been forced to get haircuts, female students banned from yearbook photos for wearing suits and students of either sex sent home for cross-dressing, says the Times article. A guy who wears heels to prom amidst scowls isn’t just making a scene, he’s performing calculated civil disobedience.

Being maligned in this way comes with elusive benefits. Getting mention in the New York Times is one of them, and all students involved in fights with their schools learn an invaluable lesson in political speech and self-advocacy. Meanwhile, straight peers who may have otherwise never been witness to anything resembling a civil rights struggle have their minds opened to LGBT issues for the first time. That leaves me to wonder if the fact that young people are more pro-gay than older people has to do with knowing lesbian and gay peers in high school.

The most important effect of LGBT youth who make a scene in the face of discrimination is that their closeted peers feel a sense of hope. I would not fault anyone who deals with prejudice by staying in the closet for a while, especially if that person is a teenager. But I have special gratitude for those who, so newly out of the closet and not yet free of the shame, doubt and fear that come with being there, take a bold stand.

Right before I came out in high school, there was one openly gay guy in the school of 1,800 students, and I knew of another who had graduated when I was a sophomore. Both of those guys were proud, and both more flamboyant than I was; I remember what they did for me, lightning rods for homophobia, clearing the space for me to define myself to less controversy.

I didn’t do anything like wear makeup or rainbows. I was okay with being seen as gay, but too concerned with portraying myself as “the masculine one” to pull an open stunt that crossed gender boundaries. It leaves me in awe of the kids who do stand out, at the age of seventeen, sixteen or younger. It may make some school administrators cringe, but the subtle, yet profound mark it leaves on their peers is well worth it.