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Loading ...ACLU: School censored student report on Harvey Milk
05.21.2009 9:24am EDT
(San Francisco, California) The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to sue a San Diego County school that refused to let a student present a report on slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk until her classmates got their parents’ permission to hear it.
David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego County, said the principal of Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona violated the free speech rights of 6th-grader Natalie Jones, who was the only student in her class prevented from giving an in-class presentation.Principal Theresa Grace concluded last month that the subject of the girl’s project triggered a district policy requiring parents to be notified in writing before their children are exposed to lessons dealing with sex, according to Blair-Loy and Natalie’s mother.
After the principal sent letters to alert parents about the “sensitive topic,” Natalie was allowed to give her 12-page PowerPoint report during the May 8 lunch recess, but not in class, Blair-Loy said. Eight of the 13 students in her class attended, he said.
In a letter to the Ramona Unified District on Wednesday, the ACLU demanded that school officials apologize to Natalie and clarify its sex education policy. It also wants the girl to be given the chance to present her biographical account of Milk’s life and death in class.
“It’s not about sex, it’s not about sex education. It’s a presentation about a historical figure who happened to be gay,” Blair-Loy said.
The school district superintendent did not immediately respond to a telephone call and e-mail from The Associated Press.
Milk became one of the first gay men elected to political office in the United States in 1977 when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was assassinated a year later along with Mayor George Moscone. Former supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the killings.
A bill passed recently by the California Legislature would establish Milk’s May 22 birthday as an annual “day of significance” in the state, a move designed to encourage schools to discuss his career and legacy.
Bonnie Jones said her daughter was inspired to choose Milk as the subject of her research report after seeing the movie “Milk,” which earned Academy Awards for actor Sean Penn and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
“First my daughter got called into the principal’s office as if she were in some kind of trouble, and then they treated her presentation like it was something icky,” Jones said in a statement.
“Harvey Milk was an elected official in this state and an important person in history,” Jones added. “To say my daughter’s presentation is sex education because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely wrong.”
Natalie Jones, YOU GO GIRL!!! Fight the right!
And she’s only in 6th grade now, wait 6 more years and we will have one pumped up and active gay civil rights activist!
Awesome!!!
It’s energy from these young activists that help this old man keep going and keep fighting the bigots!
It’s actually completely unsurprising when very conservative people think only about sex. It’s been found that the redder a state or region is, the higher its consumption of pornography is. They’re more sexually paranoid and don’t permit themselves to have a healthy sexuality. Whereas people in blue states/regions actually have the lowest consumption of pornography. So naturally when the conservatives think about sexual orientation and relationship rights, they think primarily about sex. There are some conservative places in this country where even married heterosexual couples (who otherwise are genuinely in love and not merely in dysfunctional marriages) are squeamish from having sex *with each other* unless they’re trying to conceive, lest they be taking up a carnal vice.
Anyway, sexual orientation is usually not about sex, but about personal identity, fundamental inner feelings, and fundamental personality, and especially who you fall in love with. It takes sheer ignorance and bias to presume it is only about sex and treat it as such as a policy. Unwillingness to re-examine these assumptions is based in deeply-ingrained cultural dogma and taboo, which is why it’s so hard to advance real improvement in these cultures.
Since that’s my home county, though I am from the coast, I wanted to leave a comment…but these are all good. Nothing to add.
It’s a sixth grade report! I’m sure sex isn’t even mentioned. We still have a long way to go.
To the Jones family: thank you for standing up to the fear and hate!
I am shocked that a biography would be twisted into a something about sex, and by educators that are supposed to educated. I’m sure the report wasn’t about what 2 consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home, (straight or gay) it was about the life and death of an elected official. People must think just because your gay you bounce around mating like bunnies and don’t have a life. NOT!
Well I wouldn’t expect otherwise right now from a county that voted in favor of prop8. I am from San Francisco and to us, this is just another lesson like that of King and Susan B. Anthony in the curriculum…not a surprise to anyone i’m sure.
LIZ,you ignorant slut.The GLBT Community is fighting for Equality.For our Constitutional Rights as American Citizen’s to be assured that there is “…Liberty and Justice for ALL.” Yeah,Gay men have sex…SO DO LESBIANS!
Liz,you sound like another bitter,man-hating bigot.
Why is it that all these conservative, so called values voters, can think about is sex. Whenever gay rights are discussed its immediately about sex. Kinda ironic that they are the ones that are preoccupied with sex which is only a very small part of gay rights and Harvey Milk’s legacy.
Natalie Jones is my new hero!
Every time an incident of this type of blatant bigotry, discrimination, and prejudice occur, the ACLU, should not only record, but compile a list of the offenses and send a written record of the events to the White House.
We should start compiling a comprehensive list of all the acts of discrimination, assault, murder, denial of equal civil rights,etc.
Every 4 months or so an updated list should be sent to the White House.
Sex? SEX? WTF?!
Hilarious that this is not the only state entangled in a lawsuit because of some half-wit staff thinking GLBT issues are all about sex. Throw the book at these clowns, I hope they lose millions.
Another case of assumptions leading the path towards looking like an ass…clap, clap, clap.
Bud Burgoon: You’re so right-on with your comments. I live in San Diego, have all my life, and I can personally attest to your comments. Everything east of I-805 is extremely homophobic; down-right dangerous in parts. Even though we have the 3rd largest gay community behind Los Angeles and San Francisco, there is no-way I’d show any PDA with my partner east of I-805—you would be seriously taking your life in your own hands if you do. To be honest, what occurred at this school is not surprising at all. Anyone living in this County knows this is every day!
Kudos to the girl and her parent(s) for taking the risk and for seeing it through!
Is anybody at all surprised at this? We keep hearing how far we’ve come and well off we are. Yet this happens in 2009. Well, it’s happening all over this country and in more awful ways than this . We are so starved for equality and recognition that we grow more and more complacent with each victory and let each loss hurt us less. We need to keep standing up and fighting back. Or maybe even take the first shot now and then. I hope this next march on Washington takes place. It’s time to really mobilize and join forces and stop saying we must go slowly. No, we must not. This paper that was censored has far greater meaning beyond those school walls. It’s time to wake up our sleeping anger. Yes, I got married. Two states away! Am I satisfied with that? No. we should not be satisfied with anything less than everything everyone else has. And that includes talking about Harvey Milk or Brandon Teena or Matt Sheperd or any other person in our schools, our homes, our jobs. Our history is part of all history.
Ramona is in the über-conservative “back country” of eastern San Diego County … a hotbed of Klu Klux Klan enclaves, survivalists, militia types, konservative kristianist krazies (kkk), National Rifle Association fanatics, etc. What the principal did is not surprising at all. Gay San Diegans don’t travel east of I-805 without shots, passport, and a fake gun in the gun-racks of their pickup trucks. Somebody actually tried to run us off the road in La Mesa (east county) in broad daylight for having Obama and “No On Hate” bumper stickers.