A controversy over a Pride flag at Worthington High School has helped inspire a push at the Minnesota Legislature to prevent school districts from targeting rainbow flags.
Representative Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, presented her bill to the House State and Local Government Finance and Policy Committee on Tuesday morning. She explained that the bill would not require any display of rainbows, but would ban local governments, state universities, and school districts and charter schools from banning rainbow flags, banners, or stickers.
“For many queer kids, a rainbow flag or sticker and the corresponding knowledge that some adult somewhere accepts you for who you are, is the only affirmation they receive at all,” she said.
Finke clarified that the bill would allow local governments to have superseding policies that ban any banners, flags, posters, or other visual displays.
“It just prohibits rainbows from being singled out and banned in schools, libraries and other government spaces,” she said.
Kat Rohn, executive director of LGBTQ+ advocacy group OutFront Minnesota, spoke in favor of the bill, citing a recent incident in Worthington. In January, the Worthington school board ordered José Morales Collazo to remove his LGBTQ pride flag as well as his Puerto Rican flag. Morales Collazo told Sahan Journal he decided to display those flags in his classroom after district officials repeatedly thwarted his other attempts to make the school more inclusive to LGBTQ+ students and students of color.
“Seeing that I was unable to do anything in the school environment to promote equity and inclusion, then I took it to my classroom,” he told Sahan Journal in January. “I can at least use my space to create that haven.”
Morales Collazo is one of the only Latino teachers at Worthington High School, where nearly two-thirds of students are Latino. After his struggles to implement equity and inclusion measures at school, Morales Collazo accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of science education at the State University of New York in Brockport. He will leave Worthington High School at the end of this school year.
In a letter that OutFront Minnesota submitted to the committee, the group noted that Worthington was not the only Minnesota school district where teachers and students had struggled with rainbow flag bans. Schools in Annandale, Farmington, and Marshall have dealt with similar controversies in recent years.
At the hearing, Representative Jon Koznick, R-Lakeville, questioned whether the display of a rainbow could be considered a political symbol.
“Schools can have public policy that prohibits political speech,” he said. “I think this moves towards that political speech.”
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Representative Kaohly Vang Her, DFL-St. Paul, said she recalled that growing up in the 1980s, some homes had stars in the windows so children would know they would be safe there if they needed help. Sometimes people hurled racist slurs or insults at her as she walked to and from school, she said, and on one occasion she sought help at a home with a star in the window.
She saw the rainbow flag as conveying a similar message, she said.
“It signals to a child or a person, this is a safe space for them,” she said. “I think that especially children need that, and I needed that.”
The bill passed out of committee on a voice vote, with some Republicans expressing opposition. It will now head to the House floor. On Thursday, Senator Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
‘A lot of hope’
Morales Collazo was preparing for a robotics competition with the high school team he coaches when Sahan Journal called to tell him about the bill.
“I am pretty happy that this issue that I had to go through led to a wake-up Minnesota call,” he said.
The introduction of the bill made him feel “so relieved,” he said.
“It just validates that people really do care and things are happening,” he said. “It gives me a lot, a lot, a lot of hope.”
Since he received the directive from the school board to take his flags down, he said, he had replaced them with student art. In their meeting discussing the removal of the items from his classroom, school board members specifically voiced objections to flags besides those of the United States and Minnesota, not to LGBTQ+ and Puerto Rican symbols altogether.
Now, instead of flags, he has a cardboard student-painted Pride banner, and another student art piece representing Puerto Rico. The student artwork means more to him than the flags he bought at the store, he said.
Katherine Lopez, a 17-year-old nonbinary senior at Worthington High School, said that hearing about the legislative proposal made them feel better about the future.
“I texted my boyfriend right away and I cried,” Lopez said. “It just left me honestly speechless, and it made me feel so fulfilled.”
Lopez is president of the Worthington High School’s AOK Club—Art, Optimist, Kiwanis—which has been a haven for many LGBTQ+ students and allies. As a graduating senior, they have worried about who will support Worthington High students after Lopez leaves for college and Morales Collazo leaves for his new job.
“I know so many kids at Worthington have told me they’re at their last limit because they don’t know what to do here,” Lopez said.
Since the school board voted to take down Morales Collazo’s flags, tensions have increased in the high school, Lopez said. LGBTQ+ students have been experiencing more harassment and threats, and also pushing back more. At the same time, since the school board expressed an opposition to flags, more teachers have been showing their support for LGBTQ+ students by wearing pins.
It was gratifying to hear that Worthington High School’s story was mentioned in the state Capitol as part of a possible policy change, Lopez said.
“I’m so proud of all the students and Mr. Morales and the community members who have rallied behind us to get our voices out there,” Lopez said. They hoped the bill would lead to more students feeling a sense of comfort and acceptance at school. “The representation really matters. It changes lives, it saves lives.”
Morales Collazo said that if the bill becomes law before he leaves for New York, he might put his flags back up. But he might prefer to leave the student art up instead.
“Just to know that I’m not alone and that there are people in power that can make change really makes a difference,” he said.
This story has been updated to include the introduction of a Senate companion bill Thursday.
