MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin faculty district’s resolution to inform bar staff from displaying homosexual delight flags in lecture rooms or from placing their most well-liked pronouns in e-mail signatures prompted pushback from college students, alumni and others, whereas the superintendent stated it was simply reaffirming a coverage that was already in place.
Kettle Moraine Faculty District Superintendent Stephen Plum not too long ago advised the varsity board the district’s interpretation of a coverage that prohibits workers from utilizing their positions to advertise partisan politics, non secular views and propaganda for private, financial or nonmonetary achieve modified following a authorized evaluation, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Plum stated academics and directors are prohibited from displaying political or non secular messages of their lecture rooms or on their particular person, together with homosexual delight flags and Black Lives Matter and We Again the Badge indicators. Workers additionally could not say in emails what their most well-liked pronouns are.
The district posted concerning the resolution on its Fb web page July 27, drawing lots of of feedback, most in opposition to the transfer.
Trey Korte, who's homosexual and taught English at Kettle Moraine Excessive Faculty from 2009 to 2019, stated he was indignant and unhappy concerning the coverage disallowing delight flags.
“Once you take away one thing that had been there awhile that represented a marginalized group, if you take that away, it does make folks really feel unwelcome,” Korte advised The Related Press Wednesday.
Critics stated the ban conflicts with the varsity district’s motto “Studying With out Boundaries,” as promoted on its web site.
“We stay in a world the place politics are highlighted, and it places folks in uncomfortable positions. I really feel the workers can totally assist college students. I really feel that each workers member, custodian and instructor must know that it’s actually in the perfect curiosity of the scholars to look out for them and to have sturdy, wholesome relationships that develop therefrom,” Plum advised the varsity board at a July 26 assembly.
Kettle Moraine Faculty Board President Gary Vose backed the choice.
“This isn’t a case the place we’re attempting to discriminate in opposition to any group or teams for that matter, however quite simply to deliver readability to permit workers to know the place the road is drawn on these varied issues. It’s not a reputation contest. Regardless what we do right here, we’re going to have some which are going to find it irresistible, some which are going to hate it. No matter that, I believe it’s the proper factor to do. I’m totally behind it,” Vose stated.
Two college students at Kettle Moraine Excessive Faculty, Bethany Provan and Brit Farrar began a web-based petition opposing the ban, which had generated almost 1,400 signatures by Wednesday.
The petition stated that delight flags can assist college students “really feel secure and supported” and that as an alternative of barring academics from utilizing their most well-liked pronouns in e-mail signatures, colleges ought to educate college students what pronouns are.
“You utilize them in on a regular basis life. So is it against the law for our academics to say what they want to be referred by?” the petition stated.
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