Student Defies Judge at Graduation
Because screw the other students.
In yesterday morning’s post, “High School Graduation and Individual Expression,” I highlighted two stories about teens denied permission to wear tasteful stoles representing affiliations. The more nationally prominent case involved Naomi Peña Villasano, a Colorado student who wanted to celebrate her Mexican-American heritage and took the district to federal court and lost.
I was sympathetic to her cause:
In the Colorado case, it’s acceptable to wear “regalia that is part of a Native American or Pacific Islander tribe.” My strong guess, considering how prevalent it has become everywhere, is that Black students are permitted to wear a kente cloth stole. In that case, it should be a free-for-all for other students to wear comparable devices symbolizing their heritage.* The Mexican-American stole the young lady wanted to wear is professionally designed and perfectly appropriate in this context. While I agree with the judge that she doesn’t have a 1st Amendment right to do so, I would think she has a 14th Amendment right to equal protection.
Regardless, either her lawyers inexplicably didn’t pursue that angle or a federal judge disagreed and it just didn’t make the news report.
Sadly, the story didn’t end there. As @Mr. Prosser noted in the comments section, Peña Villasano defied the school and the judge.
As Naomi Peña Villasano stood in front of the Grand Valley High School graduation assembly, steps away from her turn to receive a diploma, she looked pointedly at her family lined up in the front row.
Subtle signals from her four brothers and her parents — head nods and hand gestures — gave the 18-year-old the OK, a permission she had failed to wrest from school officials and a federal court judge. She pulled a Mexican/American stole from under her graduation robe and draped it over her shoulders so the red, white and green colors of the Mexican flag swung from one side and the red, white and blue of the American flag dangled from the other.
She strode to the podium when her name was called, fist bumping her school’s principal as a school counselor announced Peña Villasano’s personal graduation message: “Viva la Raza.” Then, her diploma was in her hands and a page was turned on what has grown into a major First Amendment rights controversy — one that has reverberated from this small Western Slope community to the statehouse to the governor’s office to a federal courtroom.
“We are pleased the school district did the right thing and did not keep a student from graduating,” said Alex Sanchez, executive director of the Latino rights organization Voces Unidas, who attended the ceremony to support Peña Villasano.
There were fears leading up to the graduation ceremony that Peña Villasano would be removed from the football field where the ceremony was held, or that her diploma would be withheld if she disobeyed school rules and wore her ethnic stole.
In the end, in spite of Peña Villasano putting on and taking off the stole several times during the ceremony, it was anticlimactic. Two other students had already whipped out Mexican flags that fluttered in the wind after they received their diplomas. When Peña Villasano arrived at the podium there were no boos or heckling. Neither was there any eruption of cheers except from her family members.
While I still think she should have been allowed to wear her stole if other students were allowed similar personal expressions, I find her actions here disappointing. It was one thing to take the fight to court. It’s quite another to hijack a ceremony celebrating the graduation of 76 people for her personal agenda. She made what was supposed to be a community event about her.
Attorneys for the district had argued in a court filing that to allow Peña Villasano to wear the stole “would diminish the experiences of the class of 2023 and impinge upon the community’s local control of the graduation ceremony.”
School district lawyers argued that the rules are in place to avoid “opening doors to speech that could offend others during a solemn, important ceremony in many families’ lives.”
Garfield County School District 16 Superintendent Jennifer Baugh had told Peña Villasano that if she were allowed to wear her stole, with symbols from the U.S. and Mexico flags, other students might try to wear symbols like Confederate flags or Nazi pins.
Given that the US military has managed to ban those symbols, I suspect the school district would have been able to do the same. (Although, clearly, they’re not able to actually ban anything given Peña Villasano’s stunt.) But their larger point is valid: turning what’s supposed to be a solemn celebration into a free-for-all detracts from the ceremony.
Apparently, others felt that way as well.
While reporters and photographers focused on Peña Villasano before, during and after the ceremony, and a contingent of local law enforcement stood by, some of the other 76 graduates grumbled that it all took away from a day that was supposed to celebrate an entire class.
“I think it’s unfair that she can sit there and make a huge scene that affects everyone else,” said graduate Tiara Walker, who was not able to wear a fresh-flower lei given to her by her boyfriend’s family. “It was very disappointing to me.”
She said that in past years she could have worn the lei, but after the brouhaha with Peña Villasano, the district cracked down on any of the gown decorations that had previously been allowed.
Graduate Molly Rhinaman said she was a victim of that crackdown. She was awarded a gold stole from Colorado Mountain College for completing college courses while she was still in high school. She was not able to wear that.
“I am the only one in the class with a CMC degree and I didn’t get to show that,” she said. “I also put in 230 volunteer hours with 4-H and I couldn’t wear the cords for that.”
Rhinaman said a lot of students supported Peña Villasano in the beginning of her quest to show off her Mexican heritage, but not by the end. She said even some of the 25 students with Hispanic surnames in the class, did not support her effort to wear the stole. She said no one expected the matter to go so far — Peña Villasano being invited as a special guest of Hispanic legislators to the Capitol, having a private meeting with Gov. Jared Polis and sparking a federal lawsuit.
“I think this thing with Naomi was just taken too far,” she said.
It turns out they were just suckers for following the rules. Clearly, they should have just done what they wanted and would have gotten away with it.
Peña Villasano admitted that her stole battle also detracted from her graduation.
“I had to focus on standing up for my rights for the past month instead of celebrating my upcoming graduation,” she said.
Unlike the other students, though, the distraction was entirely of her own making. And, frankly, even if there were a “right” to celebrate her heritage during the graduation ceremony, the school allowed students to do so via decorating their mortarboards. Several other Mexican-American students did just that.
Regardless, the policy will have to change next year one way or the other. Either students will be allowed to whatever they want during the ceremony or school officials will have to make them unzip their gowns to ensure they’re not smuggling something underneath. Honestly, just canceling the ceremony altogether and just letting them pick up a diploma on their way out the door might be preferable.
_____________
*It turns out that there is actually a specific provision in Colorado law allowing indigenous peoples to wear these stoles at graduation. I’m not sure that’s Constitutional.
I attended a small town HS graduation yesterday. 41 graduates. Having been unaware of graduation stoles until your post a few days ago I was curious if I would see any. The only stoles were a dozen or so, all identical camo with small U. S. flags. I took it they were kids going from HS into the military.
@gVOR08: I had been aware of the kente cloth stoles worn by Black students to college graduations for quite some time. At some point, they migrated to high school graduations.
I attended my youngest stepdaughter’s HS graduation two years ago and it seemed everybody had at least three doodads of some sort hanging around their necks. I think most signified some sort of school-related achievement but some (including the aforementioned kente cloths) were personal.
In some sense, I found it distracting. With so many students (I would guestimate at least 70%) decorated in some fashion, it actually made those without seem outliers and made me wonder how they’d managed not to accumulate at least one thing worthy of a doodad.
I don’t know when the military thing became a thing. I’ve only become aware of it in the last year or so. I’m not a fan. Enlisting in the military is not, in an of itself, an achievement.
Is it though?
Graduation is a big deal for some students and especially their families. Many of them face hardships that never touch the rest of us. Learning differences, social barriers, etc. As such, I try to be more (rather than less) accommodative of individual expressions and family exuberance during these ceremonies.
Did she though? Based on the reports, she wore her stoles, fist bumped the principal, walked across the stage, and her family cheered. Seems like weak sauce for a hijacking (or a “stunt”) but I allow for differences of interpretation.
I’m not at all surprised that some of her mates cast a side eye. Status and attention — to the high school brain, it doesn’t get more zero sum than that. (But don’t despair, it’ll only get worse as they age.)
Relatedly, methink it’s important to keep in mind that these are high schoolers. Self-absorbed and self-righteous are kinda their thing. But as with the zero sum mentality, you can take solace in knowing that they will age into this too.
I expect a backlash in the next few years, such that the “cool kids” will go for an extreme modesty look. #graduateplain #amishchic
Will that offend your sartorial sensibilities? You are a rather dapper gent after all.
ps, In your follow-up comment to @gVOR08:, you wrote “doodad” — twice!! I choose to ignore the dismissiveness of the use and instead focus on the delightfulness of the word. Everything about it brings me a hit of joy. I plan to use it no less than 10 times today in my real life discussions. Thank you.
Somewhat peevish this AM.
@James Joyner:
Ya think that the students care whether YOU found it distracting?
Perhaps the celebration of your step-daughter’s graduation would have been more fulfilling by focusing on her accomplishment, rather than judging other students.
But more to the point of the OP, sounds like the Colorado legislature opened the door by specifically allowing some students to co-celebrate their ethnicity in this fashion ( while at the same time leaving it to local district schools to potentially deny the same to other students).
She took the case to court, she wasn’t dragged into court. And then when the court ruled against her she decided to ignore the ruling. Very trumpish – I only accept the result when I win. I hope the judge finds her in contempt and has her spend a night in jail.
If I recall correctly James Joyner has teenagers in the home. This is a point of maximum frustration for fathers as they (we) are increasingly dismissed and sidelined. The urge to get some measure of control. . . But no, it never works, it doesn’t matter how good a father you may be, the little pricks have taken your measure by now, they have all of your buttons precisely geo-located and they have more than enough HIMARS sighted in on your every psychological vulnerability.
In the eternal battle between bratty teenagers and parents/teachers/decorum/common sense, the outcome is never in doubt. They are terrorists. Adults are hostages. Stern but loving admonitions versus hormone-fueled oppositional defiant disorder.
So, listen up, young James, when you get a few more years on you and take a bit more emotional battering you’ll learn that the secret to happiness as an aging dad is to shrug, smile in faint amusement, and say, ‘Eh, whatever.’ Give up. Give up early, then have a cocktail.
@Mimai: As noted yesterday, my preference would be for all of the kids to be dressed identically—that’s the point of regalia—with the only exceptions recognition of scholastic honors, given that the purpose of the event is to recognize academic achievement. One can’t control one’s ethnicity, after all, so it’s really not something one needs to “celebrate.” But, yeah, once the floodgates are open, I think they should be open.
@Bob@Youngstown: I was expressing my reaction to the event, not guessing how others perceived my reaction. If everyone is otherwise dressed identically, then it highlights deviations rather dramatically.
@MarkedMan: While that might be a just outcome, I’m not sure it works that way. She was challenging the school’s right to forbid her to wear the stole; I don’t think the judge so much ordered her not to wear it but upheld the school’s legitimate purpose in doing so. Like you, I find her defiance tantamount to an eff you to the judge but I don’t know that it’s legally contempt.
@Michael Reynolds: Ha! Given that I was 43 and 46 when my kids were born, and then was a single parent from 47-54, I’ve generally been pretty laissez faire in matters not involving their personal safety. Within reason, I let them wear what they want to school. And have had more than my share of cocktails!
@Mimai: Ha! I, too, was delighted by the use of the word doodad, but for some reason my brain put it in the context of a spaghetti western and Sheriff Joyner was asking the new guy in town where his doodad’s were. 😛 😛
It’s really made my morning!
@Michael Reynolds: Never a thumbs up button when you need one. ^
I think high school graduations are for individuals and a chance to proclaim their uniqueness perhaps for the only time in their lives. I can understand forbidding truly disruptive behavior or racist and political regalia. Uniformity should be for teams and graduating classes definitely aren’t teams. I think marching bands, sports teams, pep squads (are they still called that?) should present a uniform front but let graduates celebrate.
Seems like there is more to the story than is being reported. Some key detail left out that made the district single out someone who wanted to celebrate her mixed heritage, and caused them to effectively change policies in order to do so, and then blame her.
Because this is America, I’m just going to assume it is racism.
It could be something else, but odds are it’s racism. Was there an incident the previous year with a confederate flag and a llama? The district would be very clear about it if that was the reason. They bring up hypotheticals, but not what happened, so I’m left to assume nothing happened.
80% confidence, and that’s adding some benefit of the doubt.
Good for Peña Villasano for defying those racist shitheads.
And Rhinaman seems like she could use a bit of work on herself. And the reporter could find any of the 25 students with Hispanic surnames who would say something, so went with a white kid talking about the Latinos? Awesome job there.
@Gustopher: The natural instinct of school officials is to exert control. I think they overreached here but there’s just no reason to think racism was the rationale. It’s just bureaucratic impulse: this is not on the approved list, so it’s denied.
The photo atop the post was from the same graduation exercise. Mexican-American students were allowed, as were all students, to express themselves on their caps. Neck adornments were reserved to specific pre-approved categories.
@James Joyner: They allowed neck adornments in the past. Something changed, enough that the school district was happy to go to court over it. Something about this kid wanting to show her heritage.
What changed?
80% confidence that if you dig you’ll find someone who thinks Latinos are fine and all, but too flashy and why do they want to make everything about themselves and a taco truck on every corner. Can’t they just put it on top of their hat where no one has to see it, like respectable people?
20% chance they just hate her for other reasons.
This could have been used as the subtitle for the post. Hmmm…
An additional thought just raced through my fertilely subversive, but slow to react (probably because I’m getting older), mind: How much of the reaction to Pena Villasano’s actions is displaced regret at not being as quick thinking and decisive as she was? (“Damn, if I’d thought, I coulda got away with it, too!” :-X )
That question is directed to the author of the post, also. Just because that’s who I am.
Indeed, often the best way to deal with petty bureaucrats, something I didn’t realize until I was much older than these kids. I’m glad they got this lesson at age 17-18.
@James Joyner: I just want to add that not every instance of racism is going to have a notarized copy of David Lane’s 14 words.
I’ve met lots of folks who “don’t have a racist bone in their bodies”, and who when they don’t have a reason that they can express for opposing things… it’s probably the racist cartilage. Or some of the other bigoted cartilage.
Often they are unaware of it themselves. Something bothers them, something about decorum, or norms or things just not looking right.
It’s often just the existence of someone who doesn’t strive to fit in to a heteronormative patriarchal white power structure*. And when someone sticks out that way, they’re noticeable and “in your face.”
It’s a very 1980s form of diversity — we should strive for a world where everyone can be a white man.
The decorative mortars would fit in with that. “You have one square foot of space for personal expression, all other space must conform to blah, blah, blah, with the following sashes permitted”
Dumb Karen shit. HOA type nuisance. Happens all the time with the most liberal of people.
The gaps in the story have all the hallmarks of that type of quiet, respectable racism.
Meanwhile, the change in enforced policy to restrict all neckwear just feels like white folks in the south filling in the community swimming pools rather than letting black folks use them.
I think your conservative nature makes you very quick to accept the 1980s style diversity — everyone should be able to conform equally! — and leaves you a bit blind sometimes. There are worse problems in a man. I don’t mean that as grave criticism — we all got a lot of shit to unpack and blind spots and assumptions that short circuit our thinking.
——
*: an overwrought term, to be fair, but so many expectations of what is “normal” comes from a white, cisgender, heterosexual male perspective that it ends up being the right term, delivered with a bit of tongue in cheek.
@ James
Hmm. In 1973, a friend’s older brother was the senior class valedictorian at our local high school. He was also the student body president – in fact, he had held pretty much every school office and had won every academic award since kindergarten.
He was not the handsome/popular football hero type of student leader. He was very straight at a time when that was really not cool. He was a rule follower.
As valedictorian, he gave the class speech at graduation, opening his remarks with “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, It’s a wonder I can think at all,” – a lyric from a just-released Paul Simon song. The speech went on in that vein.
The students, for the most part, went wild as their straight-arrow class president finally let his freak flag fly. Half a century later, people still talk about it with admiration.
I was too much of a rebel in school, something I would mitigate if I could go back in time. That being said, I worry about kids I encounter that don’t seem to have any rebellion at all in them.
I have sat through several graduations. I found them boring, painful, and not at all memorable. If I had worn a distinctive garment of some kind, it would matter very little to me now. It would have stopped mattering about three seconds after my Dad got to take a picture. I would have been happy to avoid the ceremonies if that had been permitted. My child’s graduations were just as meaningless, but somehow it had become a thing for (some) of the families to hoot and clap when their kid received the diploma for being 296th in a class of 402.
There are many distinctive and good things about Mexican culture and some meh things as well, of course. I hope that young Peña Villasano is able to merge and enrich both cultures in her life. A thing around the neck on one occasion is not that important.
@DK: Indeed! Well said!
H-F HS 1966
When we had all walked across the dais and accepted our diplomas and the ceremony was done all 100 of us broke out in song:
We’ve Gotta’ Get Out Of This Place!
Another High School Favorite
It’s got a beat and you can dance to it.
@Gustopher: Also well said! (And continuing to add these little kudos before was what prompted the thumbs up button.)
James is right that the kid defied a court order. With the Supremes in the pocket of the Kochtopus, this is something we should all be thinking about.
@James Joyner:
There never is, eh? There’s always at least one other plausible explanation.
You can’t possibly be this naïve.
@Gustopher:
OMG am I going to quote this. Thanks.