A Denver Public Schools parent has sued the district over its policy allowing teachers to display Progress Pride flags in their classrooms, saying LGBTQ+ flags “discriminate” against his straight, cisgender, white children.
Nathan Feldman, whose children attend Slavens School in southeast Denver’s Wellshire neighborhood, on Nov. 10 filed the federal suit in the U.S. District of Colorado that states DPS’ policy supporting LGBTQ+ students is “not inclusive of all students” or of his children, who are “heterosexual, Caucasian, and/or binary/’cisgender.'” The lawsuit comes after his unsuccessful attempts to have what he described as a “straight pride” flag displayed in his children’s classrooms.
The lawsuit alleges Feldman and his children have “suffered irreparable harm directly” because of the district’s policy, and it seeks an injunction stopping the district from enforcing the policy that prohibits the straight flag display and a declaratory judgment on the unconstitutionality of the policy.
The lawsuit also seeks $3 million in punitive damages from Slavens School Principal Kurt Siebold, DPS Director of Operations Christina Sylvester, and DPS family constituency specialist Katherine Diaz, who are named individually in the lawsuit as well as the district, the DPS school board, Superintendent Alex Marrero and two of Feldman’s children’s teachers.
According to the lawsuit, Feldman asked the district to display a flag he described in an email as a “straight pride” flag, a black and white striped flag with a linked male and female gender sign on it, in front of his children’s classrooms to include them, but the district did not respond to his request.
“Each day at school, (Feldman’s children) are exposed dozens, if not hundreds, of ‘Progress Pride Flags’ that DPS officials have strung throughout the Slavens School classrooms and halls as a means of expressing and promoting DPS’ favored viewpoint on the topic,” the lawsuit states. “Due to the fact that (Feldman and his children’s) views differ, (Feldman and his children) simply requested to have their views expressed, as well. But DPS has refused, and continues to refuse, to permit (Feldman and his children’s) speech or expression to even exist in its schools.”
Feldman first raised his concerns about pride flags to the district Oct. 6, 2022, according to the lawsuit, after he attended a school event and saw Progress Pride Flags displayed in front of classrooms.
He asked his children’s teachers about the flag displays because “Pride Flags are not inclusive of all Slavens School students and only represent one viewpoint on the topic of sex,” and if he could have the straight pride flag displayed as well.
Neither teacher responded, so he sent a follow-up email that Siebold answered, explaining district policy that supports teachers’ right to display a rainbow flag or any other sign of support for LGBTQ+ students.
The lawsuit alleges Siebold’s response and DPS policy “confirms” the district “does not allow students or staff to speak or express support for students or staff who are not members of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Siebold later allegedly sent an email that stated, in part, “DPS doesn’t allow for other flags,” according to the lawsuit.
Feldman went back and forth with DPS officials and school administrators and faculty, saying the use of the pride flags and alleged non-allowance for other flags violates the 1st and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
He also sent an email to Sylvester, stating he’d like to “follow [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies] to display a straight pride flag with 2 gender symbols” in front of his children’s classrooms.
He met with Siebold and Diaz in January, where Diaz allegedly said, “‘sexual orientation, gender identity and race protections only apply to homosexuals, people of color, and trans people.”
Feldman claims, according to the lawsuit, straight, white, cisgender people should “be members of protected classes or protected against discrimination” because those are parts of sexual orientation, race and gender identity.
Feldman and his children are being represented by Michael Yoder and Chad LaVeglia, two Washington D.C.-based attorneys.
DPS Director of External Communications Scott Pribble said as of Monday the district had not been served the lawsuit, but even if they had could not comment on pending litigation.
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To think otherwise, is to simply believe that it’s okay to discriminate against majority groups simply because they are the majority.
No, it’s OK to discriminate against assholes, because they’re assholes. Full stop. They can go form an asshole lobby if they don’t like it… oh wait, they did, it’s called the Republican party.
If there were a “White Pride” group at a college campus, I’d be arguing that they need to allow a “Black Pride” as well.
If I want this kind of lowest common denominator cultural simplification with a bunch of slippery slope kinds of arguments, I’ll go debate the kids who go to high school with my son. This black and white “the nuance doesn’t matter, it’s just logical” world view exists wilfully ignorant of it’s own consequences, thinking it has the moral high ground because it’s head is up it’s own ass. I don’t have time for it.
Either everyone gets equal representation or nobody does
I both fixed your point and highlighted how you’re wrong. Representation for LGBT+, as well as ethnic and racial minority groups is not equal in the US.
Symbols like pride flags give those groups an opportunity to have representation where they normally wouldn’t.
We don’t live in an ideal world, we live in the real world. Come join us in supporting people oppressed by Mr. Feldman and those like him.
Did you mean to respond to me or the free speech / equal rights absolutist guy?
I did, although I think you did it better. I kept thinking of that quote about unlimited tolerance from Popper and I think you summed it up nicely.
Representation for LGBT+, as well as ethnic and racial minority groups is not equal in the US.
I think they actually have higher representation in pop culture proportionate to their percentage of the population. 7.2% of Americans are LGBTQ+, but they are represented far above that in pop culture. As far as federal legislatures go, they are under-represented. Only about 3% of Congress is openly LGBTQ+, so they are under-represented there, by about half. The same goes for BPOC, but they have higher representation in Congress. Representation of BPOC in pop culture is far higher than 13%, which is what percentage of the population they have, but they only have about 11% representation in Congress. We’ve made a lot of progress and it seems that we’re almost there, but it feels like people are more divided than ever before in my lifetime.
Discarding that race is a construct, “White” is not an ethnicity. Irish, Swedish, French, etc. is. Go nuts being proud of that if that’s your thing.
“Black” is an ethnicity in that most of that heritage went through a little nightmare called slavery which landed their ancestors here. Their culture at a granular level was forcibly erased and obscured by design, which is why black folks get a pass since most can’t really pin down if they’re Zulu, Kongo, etc. Put your melanin deficient ass through that as well as sustained systemic disenfranchisement and violence for a few generations and got can claim “White pride” without being a fucking bigot.
Given that white/cisgender/heterosexual men are by and large the overriding baseline in our patriarchal society and that I would bet donuts to blowjobs you wouldn’t switch places with a minority that wouldn’t be represented by this mythical mayonnaise flag for less than probably ten figures explains that this bullshit argument of yours is bad faith.
Man, at least the trolls on reddit were funny
