Vernon Broadcaster - Printable Version

Story originally printed in the Vernon Broadcaster or online at www.vernonbroadcaster.com

Published - Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Diversity Day decision shadows entire community

Broadcaster editorial by Matt Johnson

The Diversity Day program at Viroqua High School may have been just a half-day of grant-funded cultural education for juniors and seniors, yet the act of canceling Diversity Day has proved it was much more than that. The Viroqua School Board made the wrong decision in canceling Diversity Day and the whole community now bears a Scarlet Letter of shame. Viroqua will be viewed as a place of intolerance.

School board members were presented with a petition including 400 signatures which sought to have a homosexual speaker eliminated from Diversity Day. The board made an "all or nothing" decision last week to cancel Diversity Day on a 4-3 vote.

The issue isn't about presenting inappropriate material to children. The students in question are older and undoubtedly aware homosexuals exist. In fact, the students are probably much better informed about the concept of the homosexual community than a great number of those who signed the petition. The Diversity Day program allowed children to choose which sessions they wanted to attend. Students weren't forced to sit through any particular Diversity Day session.

The issue is tolerance.

Anyone living in the greater Viroqua community knows that the school district is already dealing with some heavy issues regarding insensitivity to minorities. Native American groups have lobbied to have the "Blackhawks" mascot changed. Native American groups protested the play "Little Mary Sunshine" last November. Native American speakers regularly visit Viroqua School Board meetings asking that students be given more educational opportunities to learn about other cultures and how racial and cultural stereotypes are insensitive.

The school board's vote to eliminate Diversity Day provides evidence toward the hypothesis that there are serious problems in the Viroqua School District when it comes to issues related to diversity.

Since the vote to cancel Diversity Day, Viroqua has taken it on the chin. Matt James' column in the La Crosse Tribune last Thursday took to task the school board members voting to cancel Diversity Day, saying that inside their heads was a "scary place." The Tribune on Sunday also opined that local students would lose out on an important educational opportunity and that canceling the program was a mistake.

The circumstance is horrible in its effect. Some people invariably will see Viroqua as an unfriendly place. It certainly can't help the school district in its plans to combat declining enrollment.

The board members who made the decision were thinking about the public when they cast their votes. That should always be a factor in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, it overshadowed doing the right thing. The right thing to do would have been to forward the entire slate of Diversity Day presenters as planned.

There are a great number of positive things going on in the Viroqua School District. One of those positive things is the agreement between the district and Vernon Memorial Healthcare concerning the running of the Bigley Pool. Scores of children were at the pool Saturday for an Easter egg hunt. While the majority of children were white, also playing with them were a number of African-American, Asian-American and Latino children. Nobody batted an eyelash or pointed a finger because diversity, even if it is to a smaller degree, is normal in Viroqua.

The board's decision may have cancelled only a half-day program, but it casts a tall shadow over both the school district and the community.