School officials and parents of LGBTQ students in Burlington, Massachusetts, are calling for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training in the district following the actions of some middle-school students who organized a counter-protest of a “pride” celebration by reportedly tearing down “pride” stickers and chanting, “USA are my pronouns.”
“Parents and teachers are outraged over the response to a middle school pride event,” reported WBZ News. “Now families are demanding school officials do more to protect LGBTQ students.”
“The acceptance and visibility of LGBTQ people is not being shoved down your throats,” claimed one parent during a meeting Monday night. “It is being normalized finally, and thank goodness.”
The LGBTQ pride event reportedly occurred on June 2 at Marshall Simonds Middle School, where students were encouraged to wear rainbow colors to school in celebration of LGBTQ “pride.”
Principal Cari Perchase wrote in a letter to families that “some students had independently organized a counter message to Pride Spirit Day,” reported WHDH News.
“This became evident in the lunchroom, where several groups of students wore red, white, blue, or black, including face paint,” Perchase added, describing that “stickers, banners, and signs were also torn off walls and crumpled into water fountains,” as WHDH News reported.
“[G]roups of students were heard chanting, ‘U.S.A are my pronouns,’ and students glared intimidatingly at faculty members showing pride,” Perchase wrote. “Students were shamed into removing their stickers or covering their clothing with rainbows.”
Perchase added she received feedback that the counter-protest was in response to the fact that the school had not recognized the observance of Memorial Day.
The failure to recognize Memorial Day was “an omission,” the principal said, adding that school officials apologized to students on Monday about their error.
Perchase added in her letter:
I am truly sorry that a day meant for you to celebrate your identity turned into a day of intolerance. Schools are supposed to be a safe place for ALL students and faculty. Some community members’ actions created an unsafe environment for many of our students, caregivers, and faculty.
A WBZ News reporter noted that the school committee chairperson “condemned the incident but declined in the specifics on disciplinary action, stressing the students involved were eighth graders.”
The chairperson reportedly said “several discussions” about the incident have occurred between staff and students over the last few days.
According to that report, the school committee meeting was attended mostly by parents of LGBTQ children, who demanded the school take a stronger stand against the students who organized the counter-protest.
“It’d be naive of us to think that what happened at the middle school won’t escalate into something more tragic in the future,” a parent said during the meeting.
Parent Christine Steiner, however, said she believes the incident report was “overblown.”
“Some of the kids threw the stickers on the ground, but, you know, I can only speak for my daughter,” the parent said, adding her daughter said she felt coerced into participating in the pride event and was offended by one sign that included a quote from Tennessee Williams that read, “What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.”
“My daughter just kind of said, ‘You know, Mom, that’s offensive to me – I am straight,’” the parent shared, adding nevertheless that the tearing down of the posters and other decorations was still wrong.
“I think destructing [sic] any property is wrong,” she said. “My thing that I teach my kids is just be kind. And I wish the schools would just kind of pump the brakes on what they’re shoving down these kids’ throats.”
According to WHDH News, in response to the situation, the Burlington Select Board “promised to work harder to establish a concrete diversity, equity and inclusion program within Burlington and the Marshall Simonds Middle School, with the town’s superintendent of schools aiming to hire for that position within the next couple of months.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Marshall Simonds Middle School” by Burlington Public Schools.
