California Hang You Head In Shame!

[Safe_Bet]

California school bans sixth grader’s presentation on Harvey Milk Link

Wrongly citing a school policy on sex education, a California school illegally censored a sixth grader’s classroom presentation about Harvey Milk earlier this month. According to a demand letter sent by the American Civil Liberties Union to the Ramona Unified School District today, the school violated Natalie Jones’s free speech rights when it refused to allow her to give the presentation in class. Instead, the school improperly required classmates to get parental permission to see the presentation during a lunch recess.

“This whole thing is unbelievable – 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,” said Bonnie Jones, mother of the Mt. Woodson Elementary School student. “Harvey Milk was an elected official in this state and an important person in history. To say my daughter’s presentation is ‘sex education’ because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely wrong.”

The assignment, part of an independent research project class, was originally to prepare a written report on any topic. Natalie Jones, who was inspired to write about Harvey Milk after watching Sean Penn win an Academy Award for portraying him, got a score of 49 out of a possible 50 points on the written report. Students were then told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they would show to other students in the class. The day before Natalie was to give her 12-page presentation she was called into the principal’s office and told she couldn’t do so.

When Bonnie Jones spoke with the superintendent about the presentation, he said Natalie couldn’t give her presentation because of a district board policy on “Family Life/Sex Education.” A few days later, the school sent letters to parents of students in the class, explaining that her presentation would be held during a lunch recess on May 8, and that students could only attend if they had parental permission.

“The principal and superintendent grossly misinterpreted school policy. They illegally censored student speech protected by the First Amendment and the California Education Code,” said David Blair-Loy, Legal Director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. “Writing or talking about a gay historical figure who advocated for equal rights for LGBT Californians is in no way the same thing as talking about sex, and school officials should not pretend otherwise.”

“Schools that act as if any mention of the existence of gay people is something too controversial or ‘sensitive’ to discuss are doing a disservice to their students,” said Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s national LGBT Project. “This school completely overstepped its bounds in trying to silence Natalie Jones by shunting her presentation off to a lunch recess time and misusing a school policy to justify requiring parental permission to see it.”

In today’s letter, the ACLU is demanding that the school:

Apologize in writing to Natalie Jones and send a letter about that apology to all the parents who were sent the principal’s letter about the presentation
Give Natalie Jones an opportunity to give her presentation to all the other members of her independent research project class
Clarify in writing that the parental notification and permission portion of the “Family Life/Sex Education” policy only applies to the curricula identified as “course content” for “Family Life/Sex Education instruction.
The ACLU is giving the district five days to respond or it may file a lawsuit on Bonnie and Natalie Jones’s behalf.

I'm physically sickened by this. What is it going to take to get it through people's heads that LGBT people aren't the demons they want to believe us to be?

What makes it worse is that this wasn't a bunch of fundies MF'ers, this is the school's administration doing this shit!

Harvey Milk should be somebody that EVERYONE - queer, straight and in between - should use as an example of how one person can change things. That he was gay was incidental. He changed things by doing what was right and by teaching others to do what was right. To have the administration of a school denigrate his contribution is utterly disgusting.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Move to Vermont.

 

[impressive]

It's reprehensible. However, I was MUCH relieved to open the thread and find it NOT about the Supreme Court ruling re Prop 8.

They're gonna hold out on that 'til the last minute, I guess. Decisions are handed down on Mondays -- and next Monday is a holiday. The decision is due by June 3rd. That just leaves Monday the 1st. *sigh* I hope to hell they do the right thing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh! They will.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

The fucking idiots that run that school should go bury their heads.

 

[Boxlicker101]

[/COLOR]

I'm physically sickened by this. What is it going to take to get it through people's heads that LGBT people aren't the demons they want to believe us to be?

What makes it worse is that this wasn't a bunch of fundies MF'ers, this is the school's administration doing this shit!

Harvey Milk should be somebody that EVERYONE - queer, straight and in between - should use as an example of how one person can change things. That he was gay was incidental. He changed things by doing what was right and by teaching others to do what was right. To have the administration of a school denigrate his contribution is utterly disgusting.

I agree that this was a reprehensible thing for that school to do. However, I would take issue with your saying that Harvey's gayness was incidental. It was what got him elected to the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors, and it is his reason for his being remembered now. Are you aware that, on the day Milk was murdered, the mayor of SF was also murdered by the same man? Supposedly, the mayor is a more prominent person than a member of the city council, but I would venture to say that most of the people on this board don't know the name of this other victim.

BTW, it was this pair of murders that led to Diane Feinstein achieving the success she has. Lady Di became acting mayor, defeated a half-ass recall election and was reelectd mayor, before being elected to the US Senate.

The murdered mayor's name was George Moscone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BOX

I read something of a similar vein the other day. The writer noted what else happened on the day John F. Kennedy died. And some major news is totally forgotten.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I agree that this was a reprehensible thing for that school to do. However, I would take issue with your saying that Harvey's gayness was incidental. It was what got him elected to the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors, and it is his reason for his being remembered now. Are you aware that, on the day Milk was murdered, the mayor of SF was also murdered by the same man? Supposedly, the mayor is a more prominent person than a member of the city council, but I would venture to say that most of the people on this board don't know the name of this other victim.

BTW, it was this pair of murders that led to Diane Feinstein achieving the success she has. Lady Di became acting mayor, defeated a half-ass recall election and was reelectd mayor, before being elected to the US Senate.

The murdered mayor's name was George Moscone.

uhhh, no.

He didn't get where he did because he was gay. He got there because he was an activist - who was gay. Big assed difference. Activist means he "acted" and made a difference. That's why he is remembered with more respect in the LGBT community than George Moscone.

And George Moscone was forgotten??? Gee, Box did he get named after the Moscone Center do you think???

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
I agree that this was a reprehensible thing for that school to do. However, I would take issue with your saying that Harvey's gayness was incidental. It was what got him elected to the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors, and it is his reason for his being remembered now. Are you aware that, on the day Milk was murdered, the mayor of SF was also murdered by the same man? Supposedly, the mayor is a more prominent person than a member of the city council, but I would venture to say that most of the people on this board don't know the name of this other victim.

BTW, it was this pair of murders that led to Diane Feinstein achieving the success she has. Lady Di became acting mayor, defeated a half-ass recall election and was reelectd mayor, before being elected to the US Senate.

The murdered mayor's name was George Moscone.

uhhh, no.

He didn't get where he did because he was gay. He got there because he was an activist - who was gay. Big assed difference. Activist means he "acted" and made a difference. That's why he is remembered with more respect in the LGBT community than George Moscone.

And George Moscone was forgotten??? Gee, Box did he get named after the Moscone Center do you think???

Harvey Milk achieved what success he did because he was a GAY activist in San Francisco. If he had been campaigning to save the whales or the spotted owls or any other cause, no matter how worthy, he would not have been elected to the Bd. of Supes, nor would there be a thread here thirty years after his murder. I'm not saying anything negative about the man, just a mild disagreement with something you said earlier.

As for Moscone, he is relatively unknown. Has a movie or an opera ever been done about his life? The Moscone Center is known locally, maybe even as far away as L. A., but not nationally.

Put it this way: If a member of Congress had been riding with JFK in the motorcade, and if both these two elected officials had been murdered, would the member of Congress be remembered now? JFK certainly is. Actually, the governor of Texas was wounded at the same time. Do you remember the name of that man?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I take issue just a bit with the characterization of the case. The real problem is that school officials live in a state of fear. What are they afraid of? They are afraid that some asshat will take them to court over any and every possible little thing. Asshats do this because they always win. They always win because the cards are stacked against the schools and also because school administrators are basically spineless. I think it's a job requirement.

In this case, the ACLU (an organization that I do not generally favor but agree with in this case) is being quite reasonable. All they want is a correction. However, you can bet your personal ass that if the child had given her report in class and someone had gone home and told his/her parents and the asshat parents had filed suit, it would have cost the school system plenty of money that especially in this day and age they don't have. (BTW, 3, how did you vote in the special election? Don't answer that, it's just me being a wiseass!) So, the school offended people who will be cheaper to satisfy than the other side. In this case, cowardice is the reasonable course.

Pity, what?

 

[JamesSD]

Ok, I'm going to take issue with this thread title.

Yes, Ramona is in California. It's arguably in the styx. The admisinstration/teacher obviously acted in disagreement with school policy and state guidelines. So, um, why should California hang its head in shame? Because 99% of the state has any influence on one school in the boonies?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The schools see the handwriting on the wall. The People are pissed with the Democrat Carnival Freaks, and their shit is in the wind. You guys really need to load up the VW van and move to Vermont.

 

[Belegon]

Being perhaps (not certainly, there are a lot of CA people here) the only regular member on this board who has spent any significant time in Ramona...

Safe, I wouldn't bet a lot of money on this teacher NOT being a "fundie MF'er." Not in that community.

I dated a girl who lived there back in the 80's... now, I know the community has grown dramatically, but then it was still a place where people could have horse on their land without it feeling cramped and where the only movie theater in town was a single screen unit that had been split down the middle.

I used to spend as much time driving to pick up my date as we would spend on the date.

The community considered, and to my knowledge still may, itself a seperate and more "traditional" place to raise a family than in "dangerous San Diego"... in this case meaning Lakeside and El Cajon, which are already on the outskirts of the suburbs.

Ramona is to San Diego and the more enlightened parts of California as Saranac Lake is to New York City.