Florida students win yearbook flap over "Don't Say Gay" bill
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — After an outcry from students and parents over yearbook censorship, a Florida school board overruled their superintendent's plan to cover up a page showing students waving rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign during a walkout against the state's so-called “Don't Say Gay" law.
The superintendent told the board that the page violated their policy by seeming to endorse a student walkout. Stickers to cover the entire page had already arrived and would be added before yearbooks are handed out this week, she said.
Seminole County School Board members rejected that plan Tuesday night, voting 5-0 to order smaller stickers that don't cover up the page's words and pictures while explaining that the March protest over the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill outside Lyman High School was unauthorized.
“I would be happy out of my own personal pocket to pay for different stickers to say this was not a school-sponsored event,” Board Chair Amy Pennock said to applause from the crowd.
The Florida bill, signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in March, bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
Students at the school in Longwood, which is near Orlando, responded to the censorship plan by creating a hashtag “#stopthestickers" in social media.
It caught the attention of lawmakers including Democratic Rep. Carlos G. Smith, Florida's first LGBTQ Latino legislator, who tweeted that the “censorship is a direct result of the law these students were protesting. #WeWillNotBeErased in this so-called ‘free state.’”
The governor frequently refers to the “free state of Florida" in his news conferences.
“We’re now all over the world on this,” complained board vice-chair Abby Sanchez, who offered to help pay...