Thursday, May 21, 2009

School curbs girl's report on gay rights activist Milk

The project was to create a powerpoint about a famous person to present to the class. The sixth grade girl chose Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public official in the U.S., about whom a feature film had recently been released. When it was her turn to present to the class the school principal said the teacher had to get permission from parents under the school's sex education policy for other class members to attend.

School curbs girl's report on gay rights activist Milk

The powerpoint is included in a link with the above article. Give me a break - she mentions that Milk was gay (no-duh) and the name of his partner but there was nothing else in it that should have required a parental permission slip. The ACLU is asking that she be allowed to give her presentation to the whole class and that the school give her an apology that they send to all the parents who received the original sex ed notification.

I'm all for parents having a say in the education of their children but, as the U.S. Supreme Court said in Tinker v. Illinois ..., students "do not leave all their rights at the schoolhouse door." The government should not be engaged in content-based censorship.

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