It’s a proud day for me. The Ramona Unified School District – my district from 3rd grade until I graduated from high school and the town my family still lives in – has censored 6th grade student Natalie Jones’ report on Harvey Milk. Apparently even talking about someone who was gay is “sexual” in nature, and requires special permission from parents. The ACLU is pissed, understandably.

From the ACLU press release:

In todayÂ’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”

Ramona Unified says they were following their own policy:

“(P)arents/guardians shall be notified in writing about any instruction in which human reproductive organs and their functions, processes, or sexually transmitted diseases are described, illustrated, or discussed. In addition, before any instruction on family life, human sexuality, AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases is given, the parent/guardian shall be provided with written notice explaining that the instruction will be given…”

The idea that a 6th grade presentation (one that received 49 out of 50 possible points, BTW) on a historical figure who happened to be gay does not equate to talking about sex. Natalie was not given the opportunity to give her Harvey Milk presentation during class. She called into the principal's office, told that permission slips would need to be signed for all students viewing her presentation, which was moved to lunch recess. If we are going to start cutting gays and lesbians out of the classroom history (and English) class is going to be a lot shorter.

Just a few gay historical figures include Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Heman Melville, Julius Ceasar, Langston Hughes, Hans Christian Anderson, J. Edgar Hoover.

You can view Natalie's 12-page presentation here.

UPDATE: Interestingly, today is the anniversary of the White Night Riots in San Francisco.

Posted by: Ensie at 02:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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