BLM GAY PRIDE FLAG FREE
Generally speaking, teachers have few rights when it comes to free speech in the classroom, said, Richard Geisel, a lawyer and professor of educational leadership at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. “The BLM and LGBTQ ideology and curriculum are shattering the innocence of children, promoting racial divide, and negatively impacting the lives of our kids forever.” Teachers’ free speech rights are limited “There are only two genders and all lives matter,” she said during a school board meeting in August, according to a recording. Newberg parent Raquel Peregrino de Britoa said LGBTQ propaganda causes gender dysphoria, BLM is designed to be divisive and schools should instead be about math and reading.
“And it creates a chilling effect for our staff, which does impede on our free speech.”Īt the August board meeting, several parents urged the board to reconsider the directive, but a few were in support of the ban on Black Lives Matter and Pride flags. “Who’s going to be the arbiter of what is considered controversial?” he said. The vagueness around the definitions of “controversial” and “political” have caused confusion among educators, Gallagher said. Andrew Gallagher, a high school history teacher and a plaintiff in the teachers’ union lawsuit, said that he believes the board members’ agenda is driven by a national movement to censor conversations about race and gender in the classroom. The district’s teachers’ union, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, has sued, calling the ban arbitrary, confusing and an infringement on teachers’ free speech. It is political,” Newberg school board chair Dave Brown, who voted for the ban, said during a school board meeting last summer.
“We’ve hijacked a beautiful rainbow sticker into something different. In Newberg, the uproar started when school board members issued a directive at an August 2021 meeting ordering the superintendent to enforce removal of all Black Lives Matter and Pride flag posters, banners, stickers, pins, and clothing from school buildings.Ī month later, the board scrapped the policy based on legal advice and passed a new iteration which banned all symbols that can be considered “political, quasi-political, or controversial.” The flag was my way of saying we as a community need to step back and listen.Last fall, a teacher in Iowa was put on administrative leave after he included the Pride flag in a presentation about images that described him and told students - when asked - that he was bisexual, according to the Des Moines Register.Īnd in September 2021, a teacher in Missouri resigned after being forced to take down a Pride flag in his classroom and forced to sign a letter prohibiting him from discussing sexuality or sexual preference, according to USA Today. We cannot ignore that and must make space for them to be heard. “Our world is so charged right now and the voices who have been screaming for years are getting louder and louder. “The inclusion of the additional stripes means placing emphasis on voices that need to be heard, especially now even more so than two years ago when I originally made the flag,” Quasar said. In an email to them., Quasar clarified that the Progress Pride Flag “was not meant as a replacement” for Baker’s iconic designs, but was intended “as a supplement to the many flags our community uses to represent us.” Those were phased out in a 1979 modification following the death of San Francisco assemblyman and LGBTQ+ rights activist Harvey Milk. The first flag unveiled 42 years ago had eight stripes, with hot pink representing sex and turquoise for magic. The six stripes in the widely popularized rainbow flag of today each represent an idea that resonates with LGBTQ+ people: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for peace, and purple for spirit.īut Baker’s flag has changed numerous times throughout the years. The Progress Pride Flag and Philadelphia’s Pride banner made waves at the time, with critics claiming that Gilbert Baker’s 1978 design, which has since been included in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, didn’t need to be updated. “We still have movement forward to make,” Quasar wrote at the time. In a statement posted to the campaign’s Kickstarter page, Quasar said the goal was to emphasize “what is important in our current community climate,” namely the inclusion of Black, Brown, and trans people long marginalized by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement.