Student, parent speak out as board considers removing song linked to LGBTQ+ history from concert
By Meryl Hubbard , Photojournalist Emmanuel Espino
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WATERTOWN, Wisconsin (WTMJ) — A Watertown High School student is speaking out after the school board began considering whether to pull a piece of music from an upcoming spring concert over its connection to LGBTQ+ history.
Sophia Anderson is one of more than 30 students in the Watertown High School Wind Symphony who have been preparing for the concert. For the past couple of months, they’ve been practicing the piece “A Mother of A Revolution.”
“Hearing that, that we might not get to play this piece is devastating,” Anderson said.
“A Mother of A Revolution” was written by composer Omar Thomas to honor the legacy of Marsha Johnson and the 1969 Stonewall Uprising which was a series of demonstrations led by LGBTQ+ people against a police raid in New York.
Anderson said students were not given a history lesson on the piece’s background due to school board policy.
“We did not, mostly because, per school board policy, Stonewall and the like LGBT topics are not something we’re really allowed to talk about in school,” Anderson said.
Back in October, the band director followed school board policy by emailing parents to explain the piece’s connection to LGBTQ+ history and offering them the option to opt their children out of participating if they found it controversial. Anderson said she knew 3 students who had opted out.
At a committee meeting Tuesday, school board members argued the piece is not appropriate for a public school. Board Vice President Sam Ouweneel said even though the band director followed the district’s controversial issues policy, they should consider pulling the piece.
“It is a great thing that we have a controversial issues policy, I think that was a great victory for parental rights,” Ouweneel said. “I do think that having a controversial issues policy does not preclude certain material from being inappropriate for a public school. My concern is as I was reading about it, it’s described specifically as a celebration of Marsha Johnson, who was a cross-dressing prostitute who threw a brick at a police officer.”
The band director declined to be interviewed but provided a written statement, saying in part:
“My programming of the piece has nothing to do with my personal beliefs for or against their actions in 1969 or the controversial issue as a whole. Simply stated, this is a highly regarded work of art, by a world renowned American composer, inspired by an event in American History,” said Reid LaDew.
Sara Fitch, whose son is in the band, said she is concerned about the precedent the board’s actions could set.
“This is absolutely an overreach, to be assessing an individual title outside of a policy that was followed, a policy that they wrote,” Fitch said. “How are we really promoting critical thinking by telling [students] what they can and can’t play?”
The school board will hold a special meeting next week to decide whether to pull the piece from the concert.
Anderson said she hopes the board listens to students and that she’s speaking up to raise awareness.
“It’s not being talked about enough,” Anderson said. “I’m going to do something, I’m going to fix this, I’m going to change it, I’m going to be the reason it’s better.”
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