Laramie Project Ban

I met Judy Shepherd, mother of Matthew Shepherd, about eight years ago when I was a junior at Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA. Less than two years had passed since her son was killed in Wyoming in one of the most gory and publicized hate crimes of the last few decades. I remember giving her a hug in the lobby of Mercyhurst's Performing Arts Center, after she had finished speaking to a pretty packed crowd. I was hanging out in the lobby with a few friends, when she came out of the auditorium and saw the three of us standing around. I remember asking her something about how she found the wherewithal to speak to audience after audience after audience about something so painful. She responded (I'm digging through the journal entry on this one to find the exact wording...): "I just want to help others who might be broken or scared or unsure."

It's been nearly nine years since Matthew Shepherd was killed. But the more times change, the more some things stay the same. Case in point, the ignorance of an Ocean Township, New Jersey principal and her superintendent, who are preventing a high school from staging The Laramie Project, an award-winning play chronicling the events surrounding the death of Matthew Shepherd. The play has already been staged in nearly 5,000 high schools over the past nine years.

It was an Ocean Township principal, Julia Davidow, who originally pulled the plug on the play. But the most disgusting part of this whole thing is a letter from Principal Davidow's superintendent, standing by her decision. Here's some text from the letter.

"If I err, I err on the side of caution. The first rule of education is, do no harm. I have to respect the decision made by our high school principal; it's not an easy job to be a high school principal. I regret that this is going to be a distraction to the community. In my 36 years here, it has been a wonderful community."

Spare me. If the first rule of education is do no harm (side note: I thought that was the first rule of medicine?), then what about the harm caused to all those students, faculty, and members of the community who could greatly benefit from this performance. Moreover, the line I regret that this is going to be a distraction to the community, is the type of public relations bullshit that fries me. If the superintendent really regretted this distraction, he'd work with the students and faculty that want to put this show on. Instead, he cowers behind the decision of a misinformed principal who's more concerned about covering her ass than actually giving students something to think about. Perhaps next the principal can make sure that all books referring to homosexual penguins are purged from school libraries.

Both Judy Shepherd and the Moises Kaufman, playwright of The Laramie Project, have written the school district to protest. Garden State Equality has also submitted a letter to the district. I can't find a direct email address for either the superintendent or the principal, but the Ocean Township School District website does have a feedback form that you can fill out here, if you'd like to ask this principal and superintendent to re-examine their rather poor and misinformed decision.

Of course, not wanting to give this principal or super all the glory on this post, I figured I'd also share with y'all a link to lyrics from a song that Randi Driscoll wrote after the death of Matthew Shepherd. Randi performed alongside Judy Shepherd at Mercyhurst, and I remember her song, "What Matters," as being such an elegant tribute to victims of hate crimes, particularly gay victims of hate crimes. Here's a link to the lyrics of her song, where you can also purchase a CD single.