Sen. Brown issues statement about King Philip H.S. incident
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GateHouse Media
Posted Feb 13, 2007 @ 06:18 PM
Wellesley —
This is the statement that State Sen. Scott Brown released on Tuesday, Feb. 13, about the incident at King Philip High School:
As you can imagine, I have received and responded to hundreds of emails regarding the incident at King Philip High School last Thursday. I wanted to share a synopsis of the events at KP and what let up to them in order to clear up the extensive misinformation that is out there.
About tow weeks ago, a couple legislators and I received an e-mail from somebody calling us “miserable, vicious and vacuous” among other things because we voted to allow the marriage amendment to move forward to the voters.
Later, we learned that the writer of this critical e-mail was a teacher at KP. I received a few calls from parents who mentioned that the teacher was misrepresenting my position on this matter in the classroom.
The parents were very concerned the teacher was pushing his personal agenda on their children. I called the superintendent of King Philip to confirm this situation and he did. We discussed having a presentation with the classes this teacher taught to discuss the legislative process, controversial issues including same-sex marriage and other topics in order to teach the students another side of these issues.
The evening before the presentation, I received calls from a parent and a student alerting me to the FaceBook.com group dedicated to the teacher in question that had, among other things, a modified photo of me depicted as the devil and vulgarities aimed toward me and members of my family.
Needless to say, I was a bit saddened by the remarks. I felt the comments, especially about my family, were out of line.
At the presentation, I talked about the legislative process and how there are many “hot button” topics in play these days, including same sex marriage. I referred to some of the letters I had received on the issue. I continued by saying that these issues are divisive and bring out a lot of hate and intolerance. I read one of the e-mails that ”wanted me to die” and another letter that included the F-word.
I stated that even here in this room there is intolerance that has been directed towards me and my family. I showed them the picture and caption of me portrayed as the devil that was on the FaceBook site and read the name of the student that created it. I continued on reading exactly what the students had not only written about me, but about the teacher and some members of my family, verbatim.
It is my belief that when you write it, you own it. The FaceBook group included not only the names, but pictures of the students that were engaged in the hate speech directed toward me and my family.
As you all know, this information is a public record and is capable of being spread throughout the world. This language was actually written by the students and directed toward me and my family. The school doesn’t edit books that have the F-word, other curse words or graphic depictions. They have educational value and are not subject to censorship.
Like previous invited speakers, there was no censorship involved, especially when some of the comments are merely a reading of comments directed at the speaker by the people in the room.
That part of the presentation was two minutes out of almost an hour. The administrators were caught off guard; the kids were embarrassed by the actions of themselves and some of their classmates. I was asked to move on and not refer to the names of the kids anymore. I complied.
I spoke for a bit longer and took questions from the students. They asked thoughtful, controversial questions and we had a healthy debate. Many students came up to me after and said that they were embarrassed by the actions of their peers and it did not reflect their feelings about me or this topic.
They also indicated that they were unable to speak freely in class for fear of reprisal from the teacher. They were also glad that I treated them like adults and did not speak down to them. Later that day I began to get calls from the media.
Apparently the same kids that I had referred to that day had immediately sent e-mails to many of the local media outlets. In their e-mails they stated that I had used profanity, called out and embarrassed students, making them cry.
Yes, I did use profanity, because I read what the kids had written about me and my family that they placed on the site. I did also name the kids that did it, because they put their own names and pictures on the site.
As young adults, students should also be held to a standard of accountability for their writings and actions directed toward others and their families. I left the school with a heavy heart because on one hand I realized that there is hate being taught in some classrooms; some of which was directed at me and my family.
On the other hand, I was encouraged by the students that truly wanted to be heard and make their comments known on this and many of the other issues we discussed. I have received an apology from the students involved and I deeply appreciate it.
The purpose of the presentation was to look at both sides of the issue and conduct a respectful debate. I’m proud to see that most students can discuss controversial topics and come to their own conclusions using critical thinking skills.
I would welcome speaking with anyone regarding this or any other matter. Please feel free to contact my office at (617)722-1555 or
[email protected].
