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Two openly gay students at Kearney High School in western Missouri are calling out their school for refusing to accept their sexuality.
Joey Slivinski and Thomas Swartz told KCTV that they were both given the opportunity to submit quotes before graduation as a final sendoff for the graduating seniors. The quotes were then to be printed in the school’s yearbook. However, when the boys got their keepsake, they had a large blank space underneath their photos, where the quote should have been.
“Of course I dress well. I didn’t spend all that time in the closet for nothing,” Slivinski’s quote read, while Swartz wrote, “If Harry Potter taught us anything, it’s that no one should have to live in the closet.”
The boys said the quotes were inspirational, but the school begged to differ.
According to reports, the school removed the quotes without notice because administrators felt that the quotes could “potentially offend” other students.
“In an effort to protect our students, quotes that could potentially offend another student or groups of students are not published. It is the school’s practice to err on the side of caution,” the school said in a statement to parents and local media. “Doing so in this case had the unintentional consequence of offending the very students the practice was designed to protect. We sincerely apologize to those students.”
“We acknowledge our mistake and will use it as a learning opportunity to improve in the future,” the statement read, signed by the school’s principal and the school district’s superintendent.
In a Facebook post, Slivinski called out the district once again, saying that the school did not accept him for who he was.
“Our schools are supposed to be a place that you can express being who you are. Today, I realized that Kearney isn’t ready for me being me,” he wrote. “I always thought Kearney was going uphill but quickly realized we’re zooming downhill quick.”
“Thank you to the Kearney School District for making me feel like you’re ashamed of having a gay student.”
