(This story has been updated to add new information.)
Watertown High School’s wind symphony will not be allowed to play a musical piece with ties to LGBTQ history at an upcoming spring concert.
The decision didn’t come without fiery opposition from most in attendance.
Board members voted, 7-1, May 12 to prohibit the wind symphony from playing “A Mother of a Revolution” by Omar Thomas, a work inspired by Marsha Johnson, a trans woman credited with being an instigator of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, considered to be a pivotal event of the LGBTQ liberation movement, according to Thomas’ website.
Laurie Hoffmann, the board’s president, was the only board member to vote against banning the piece. Board member Craig Wortman was not at the meeting. The board’s decision was met with a loud round of boos and shouting from most of the people in attendance before they walked out.
Hoffmann said she was in favor of allowing the piece to be played while including a disclaimer saying that the piece reflects the opinion of Omar Thomas and does not reflect the views or opinions of the district and that the district does not embrace violence as an agent of social change.
She had proposed allowing the song to be played, but including the disclaimer in the concert program. The board split 4-4 on the vote, and the motion failed.
Even before the board’s vote on the piece, the mood in the room was tense, with audience members often shouting over or booing at board members as board members tried to discuss the piece.
For example, when board member Tammy Fournier said, “I think you have the right to be appalled, but it’s at your music teacher,” she was met with a loud chorus of boos and shouting of disapproval.
She went on to say, in part, “You should be disappointed in your educator that instead of educating you and picking a piece that wouldn’t cause controversy, that he instead chose a piece that was going to incite controversy in our community.”
The school’s wind symphony was supposed to have performed the piece at the concert, scheduled for May 18.
The board’s decision came after 30 people, a mix of mostly students, parents and community members, spoke during the meeting’s public comment period, most of them in favor of allowing the students to play the piece. Board members voted five times to extend the public comment period, which lasted about an hour and 10 minutes.
Connor Sandvick, a member of Watertown High School’s wind symphony, said he was disappointed when he learned that the piece he and his peers had been working on was going to be censored. He said he was confused and “horribly disappointed.”
“My parents have raised me to think for myself, and to speak out on what I believe, and I believe this is absurd, that we are unable to play the piece that so many of us have worked so hard for and that so many of our parents have worked and supported us to see, to be not played,” he said.
While a majority spoke in favor of keeping the song, not everyone was on board.
John Markl, a Watertown resident, asked the board whether they were aware of the opt-out option Watertown High School band teacher Reid LaDew had sent to parents. He had criticized the piece days earlier in a May 2 Facebook post: “This is not ok!! This is radical curriculum! This is indoctrination!” while also saying it was “an LGTBQ+ tribute piece.”
“There are those here that would call that censorship. I call that oversight, and I think it’s definitely a part of what should be going on,” he said at the May 12 meeting.
LaDew declined to comment on the board’s decision in a May 13 email to a reporter. He said all future communication about the matter should be directed through district administration and referred a reporter to Watertown High School Principal Jason Widiker. Widiker did not immediately respond to a reporter’s call or email.
District Superintendent Jarred Burke has also not responded to a reporter’s call and email.
Over 100 people – a mix of parents, students and community members – held signs outside Watertown High School during a protest before the meeting advocating for the piece to be allowed.
The May 12 meeting was called after the board’s educational service committee sent the issue to the full board. At the May 5 committee meeting, board Vice President Sam Ouweneel praised LaDew for following the district’s controversial issues policy in how he informed parents about the piece and providing them an opt-out option. However, Ouweneel said the policy did not prevent the piece from being considered inappropriate for a public school. He cited Johnson’s alleged role in the Stonewall uprising.
“A piece that celebrates Marsha Johnson, who was an individual who engaged in crossdressing, who did engage in sex work – I think that’s pretty well established – was a prostitute, and during a raid on the Stonewall Inn, which was being run as a speakeasy and a location where the mafia or mob could traffic drugs, chose to throw either a brick or a stone at a police officer – I think that there is an issue with having a piece of material or curriculum that is celebrating that kind of activity,” Ouweneel said at the May 5 committee meeting.
The New York Historical, a museum, said there are conflicting accounts about Johnson’s role in the uprising. While one account claims Johnson threw a shot glass at a mirror, another claimed Johnson climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy purse on a police car’s windshield, shattering it.
Leading up to the meeting, Watertown High School alumnus Adam Klaus, who graduated from the school in 1997, and Kendra Klein, who graduated from the school in 1996, created a letter asking the board to allow the band to play the piece. Klaus said in an email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the afternoon of May 12 that the letter had 283 signatures, including 150 Watertown High School alumni.
Contact Alec Johnson at 262-875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on X at @AlecJohnson12.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Controversial musical piece will not be allowed at Watertown school concert
Reporting by Alec Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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