Story at a glance
- New Jersey students and teachers this week asked their school board to allow them to fly LGBTQ+ pride flags in June to celebrate Pride Month. The celebration would violate a new district policy banning flag displays.
- According to the board’s vice chairman, the policy was only adopted because community members had asked about an LGBTQ+ pride flag raised at one of the district’s schools last June.
- Under the new policy, only American flags and New Jersey state flags may be flown on school grounds.
New Jersey high school students and teachers on Monday called on school board members to allow them to raise LGBTQ+ pride flags on school grounds in June to celebrate Pride Month, even though it would technically violate a new policy banning flag displays on school property.
“I think it is unfair and it discriminates,” Camila Perez, a freshman at Passaic High School, said Monday while a large pride flag was draped across her shoulders, NJ.com reported. “It bothers me and it bothers the whole community.”
Flag displays had been permitted by the school district up until November, when a handful of community members had reportedly inquired about a pride flag flying at one of the district’s schools last June, the board’s vice chairman, L. Daniel Rodriguez, said Monday, according to NJ.com.
Under the new policy, only American flags and the New Jersey state flag may be flown on school grounds.
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“It wasn’t so much of a complaint as it was inquiries as to how the flags were put up there,” he said, adding that, given the diverse population of Passaic, it was more simple to enact a blanket ban rather than choose which flags schools within the district would be allowed to display.
“It was one of those issues we wanted to make sure we were fair to everyone,” he said. Rodriguez also suggested that the board would discuss the new policy’s future at a later meeting.
But students, staff and other members of the community on Monday said they were still hurt by the ban, feeling that the LGBTQ+ community was being singled out.
“This is an issue of inclusion and not exclusion,” Christian Fuscarino, the executive director of Garden State Equality, said during the meeting. “To stand against the rainbow flag being raised is to stand against the students of the district.”
One teacher, Jesus Velez, reminded the board that New Jersey was one of the first states to require schools to have a curriculum that is LGBTQ+-inclusive — a particularly salient point considering recent state-led efforts to bar topics like sexual orientation and gender identity from the classroom.
“Our own governor is very supportive of our community,” Velez told the board. “Knowing that we’ve worked so hard…but knowing that the next generation, they’ve been taken down. That really hurts.”
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Published on Mar 16,2022