A Lesson in Courage: Heather Gillman, Student: Intellectual Freedom Award Winner
by ReLeah Cossett Lent and Gloria Pipkin,
Florida Council of Teachers of English
The NCTE/SLATE Intellectual Freedom Award is awarded to individuals or institutions that have shown courage in advancing the cause of intellectual freedom or fighting censorship. As long-time advocates of First Amendment rights for students in public schools, and as co-chairs of the newly created Commission on Intellectual Freedom of the Florida Council of Teachers of English (FCTE), we were thrilled to nominate Heather Gillman, a 17-year-old senior at Ponce de Leon High School in Holmes County, Florida, for FCTE’s first annual Intellectual Freedom Award in 2008. We then nominated Heather for the national award as well as the affiliate-based NCTE award.
We knew that recipients of these awards had traditionally been adults, not students, and Joan Kaywell, 2008 FCTE President, made the case to the board that it was important for the organization to honor a student who, so early in her life, accepted the challenge to support intellectual freedom for her fellow students.
In the fall of 2007, when a student reported to officials at her small 6-12 school in rural northwest Florida that she was being harassed because she was identified as a lesbian, the principal responded by censoring any expression of "gay pride” and suspending several students who defied his order. Heather Gillman was among the students who stood up for her friends by wearing a t-shirt with a rainbow flag painted on the front, although she wasn’t among those who were suspended. After Heather’s mother contacted the ACLU of Florida, Benjamin Stevenson, a staff attorney in the ACLU’s Pensacola office, wrote to the school district on Heather's behalf, asking whether sixteen specific, supportive slogans and symbols such as the rainbow flag would be allowed at school. The district replied that it would not allow any expressions of support for gay rights because they would be "disruptive," also claiming that these were signs of a "secret/illegal organization."
Represented by the ACLU of Florida, Heather was the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction to stop suppression of students' First Amendment rights. As a longtime middle school teacher in Northwest Florida (as well as a native of Holmes County), Gloria testified for the plaintiff at the trial, addressing the responsibility of schools in an increasingly diverse society to teach students to address our deepest differences in a civil manner, and rebutting the school district’s claim that such discussion was inherently disruptive. After a two-day trial in Panama City in May 2008, at which the principal testified that he believed clothing or stickers featuring rainbows would be sexually suggestive, U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak ruled that the school violated students' First Amendment rights (see the judge's stirring opinion and order).
After NCTE announced that Heather would receive its national award, we launched a campaign to raise funds to send her and her mother, Ardena Gillman, to San Antonio, the site of the 2008 NCTE convention. An email appeal went out to student advocates and First Amendment activists across the country, and within 24 hours we raised enough money to cover all expenses of that trip as well as one to FCTE’s fall conference in Orlando, where Heather was also honored.
Heather seemed unaware of the impact of her courage. When she accepted the award from the Florida Council of Teachers of English, she was reluctant to talk “in front of all those teachers.” She said that she simply did what she had to do—defend her friends against an administration that discriminated against those of different sexual orientations. She accepted the award shyly as the group rose to its feet, honoring her with enthusiastic applause.
While in San Antonio, just prior to accepting the award, Heather once again seemed in awe of the crowd. She had prepared remarks but, upon seeing the huge room filled with adults, decided she would accept her award with a smile rather than with words. As she heard an explanation of why she had won the award and saw the audience again stand for an ovation, she took the microphone and thanked NCTE, stating that this experience allowed her to understand the importance of First Amendment rights. It was one of those moments that leaves you with a sense of awe, a symbolic reminder of our obligation not only to protect our students’ fragile rights but to ensure that they also understand them. Heather left the hall that night with her mother, sighing softly and saying she was glad that was over with. “Now, let’s go shopping for some skinny jeans,” she said, reminding us of the monumental courage it took for this teenager to do what she knew was right.
Combating Censorship Articles and Websites of Interest
National Scholastic Press Association: Fighting Censorship: A Checklist
American Civil Liberties Union: A History of Fighting Censorship
Publishers Weekly: Guidelines for Libraries
Somebody Think of the Children: discussing censorship and moral panic in Australia (blog)
National Coalition Against Censorship
Society of Professional Journalists: Fighting Censorship on Campus
Freedom House: Freedom House is an independent non-governmental organization supporting the expansion of freedom in the world.