Students barred from talking of climate change in graduation speeches

By Oliver Milman | June 12, 2019

Dirty Smokestack Image courtesy Shutterstock

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by The Guardian. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Schools and colleges across the US have been accused of censoring students who have attempted to use their graduation speeches to speak out on the unfolding climate crisis.

A youth-led movement called Class of 0000 is encouraging students to read out a prepared text at their graduation ceremonies that warns of “catastrophic climate change” and tells elected leaders to “have plan to get to zero emissions, or get zero of our votes.”

More than 350 students set to speak at ceremonies as valedictorians, or in other roles, have pledged to read the message, but many have complained that educational authorities have barred them from doing so as the global climate emergency is deemed too political to mention.

In the US education system, a valedictorian is typically a student with the highest academic performance in the class. This student delivers a farewell speech for the class at its graduation.

Emily Shal, an 18-year-old senior, was told by her school that the climate message was “too controversial” for her graduation speech as class president. Shal read the speech at a talent show before the graduation ceremony and said she still received backlash from school authorities.

“The administration were very mad, they were pissed,” said Shal, who attends Whittier Tech high school in Haverhill, Massachusetts. “Everyone was telling me I was in trouble. They now consider me rogue and rebellious. I was really worried about repercussions.”

Worried that she would be dragged off stage if she made the climate speech, Shal decided to apologize and comply with the demand not to mention climate change at the ceremony last week. She said a large majority of her classmates consider climate a “huge topic” that needs to be addressed.

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“The school thinks it is a political issue that shouldn’t be brought up,” she said. “My freedom of speech was definitely taken away. We are tearing down our home, the Earth, and it should be our No 1 concern in the world. But it’s not.”

Jessica Lopez, another 18-year-old senior, was told by the principal of Health Sciences high and middle college in San Diego that she shouldn’t mention climate change as it’s political and instead “should be celebrating our achievements” in a more traditional graduation speech.

Lopez said she was surprised as her school is “friendly and innovative” and previously allowed students to take part in a walkout to protest school shootings.

“It’s shocking to me that we could voice our opinions then, but are silenced when we want to talk about climate change,” she said. “I was very upset and felt like I didn’t want to go up there and be a hypocrite. It’s created a lot of tension between the class and the administration.”

In lieu of her planned speech, Lopez and most of her class plan to don badges that say “No Planet B” for the ceremony.

“A lot of adults blame our generation for being sensitive but we have to deal with the problems they have caused,” Lopez said. “It’s really frustrating. We are vocal about climate change because no one else is going to do anything about it. On this issue, it feels like the adults are the children.”

In other incidents, two students at Albany high school in California were told to drop mentions of climate change with one, Tamara Valenzuela, using social media to attack the decision. A separate student, Saisantosh Tiruchinapalli from Arizona, was told he could mention the importance of voting but not climate change.

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The climate crisis has become a deeply polarized issue in the US, to the point that recent polling shows it divides voters even more than issues such as abortion and gun control.

A growing youth climate moment has sought to break the political deadlock in the wake of a series of dire warnings from scientists over the flooding, wildfires, drought and societal unrest that global heating is spurring.

Many of the US students planning to speak out say they were inspired by Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager who inspired an international wave of school strikes over the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, the Sunrise Movement, one of the US groups that helped organize the Class of 0000 initiative, has been driven by youth activists and has been at the forefront of championing the Green New Deal, a plan to rapidly decarbonize the US economy.


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Ralph Michael Doliner
Ralph Michael Doliner
4 years ago

Sounds like a good way to teach cynicism about authority.

Citizen Cained
Citizen Cained
4 years ago

Pretty sad the leaders of education won’t stand up for what’s right

Robert
Robert
4 years ago

The only bright spot in this whole mess is this next “greatest generation”. We should learn from their example.

Sumner Roper
Sumner Roper
4 years ago

Thanks to Oliver Milman for such a well written and timely article on two critically important subjects, specifically, 1/ The emergence and recognition worldwide of catastrophic climate change and 2/ The politicization and “shocking” censorship implemented by educational “authorities” around our country in restricting the discussion of climate change in valedictorian and other leadership speeches to graduating classes. “Freedom of Speech” has been seriously interdicted and it started at the top! I never thought I would see the day when this kind of thing would happen in our country but lesson learned!!

Candace Vanasse
Candace Vanasse
4 years ago

The topic is not political! There are people who know climate change is real, and the other ignorant assholes that say it’s not. Trump and the other stupid lawmakers made it political! Ask not for whom climate change is real, ask whose pockets are getting lined.

Citizen Cained
Citizen Cained
4 years ago

Wow so much for freedom of speech and thinking…what have we become?

EDWARD GUCKER
EDWARD GUCKER
4 years ago

The part of their speech that is being censored should be posted. During the live speech, they should say they have been censored and where to find the censored material. For public schools and universities, this should be challenged as unconstitutional.

don
don
4 years ago

At UCSC’s live-streamed graduation on Sunday, I watched as they cut the audio feed of a student speaker when she dared for 10 seconds to call out Israel for its shameful actions re the Occupied Territories…like climate change, an issue that won’t go away no matter how one tries to ignore it. Seeing a trend here…

Mark Walker
Mark Walker
4 years ago

These folks could have helped – https://www.thefire.org/about-us/campus-rights/