March 13, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org NEW
YORK - The New York Civil Liberties Union today expressed its strong support for
three Westchester public high school students who were suspended for saying the
word "vagina" during their performance last week of a passage from Eve Ensler's
The Vagina Monologues.
"It is shocking that school administrators
would object to the public performance of a renowned literary work simply
because it contained the word 'vagina,'" said Donna Lieberman, Executive
Director of the NYCLU. "Schools should be encouraging students to express
themselves freely, not silencing dialogue."
In a letter to the
Katonah-Lewisboro School District, the NYCLU urged the school to rescind its
suspensions of the students.
School administrators reportedly had
given the students the "choice" of performing the monologue without saying the
word "vagina," or not performing it at all. The students chose to perform
the monologue as written, using the word in question. They are now being
threatened with one-day suspensions. The suspensions have been put on hold
in light of the controversy that has erupted.
The NYCLU's letter
asks the school district to lift the sentences of suspension for the young
women. The letter points out that allowing the suspensions to go into effect
would raise serious First Amendment concerns. According to the NYCLU, schools
have the right to prohibit vulgar or lewd speech, but the passage in question
was neither vulgar nor lewd.
The letter also points out that the
defense raised by school officials - that the students were suspended for
insubordination because they had agreed not to say the prohibited word - was
invalid because the school had no right to censor the young women's speech in
the first place.
"To act like saying 'vagina' publicly is in some
way insubordination only reinforces the same negative reactions that
The Vagina
Monologues aims to counter," said Galen Sherwin, Acting Director of the NYCLU's
Reproductive Rights Project. "These young women should be applauded for their
courage and self-possession, not disciplined for
insubordination."
The NYCLU's letter is online at:
www.aclu.org/freespeech/youth/29016lgl20070313.html
