LONGMONT, Colo. (AP) – A Longmont charter school is being criticized for blocking a class valedictorian from delivering a graduation speech in which he planned to come out as gay.
Eighteen-year-old Evan Young told the Daily Camera that he agreed to make some suggested changes to his speech but wouldn’t remove the disclosure about his sexuality. Young says he wasn’t notified until just a few minutes before the May 16 ceremony that he wouldn’t be allowed to speak or be recognized as valedictorian.
The school says Young didn’t submit a revised version of the speech and that a graduation speech is not the time for a student to “push his personal agenda on a captive audience.”
A gay rights group, Out Boulder, has asked Young to deliver his speech during an event May 31.
