The Pennsylvania State Board of Education has ordered gay actor Maulik Pancholy’s “lifestyle” after school board members expressed concerns about his “lifestyle,” sparking backlash from the surrounding community. Mr. Lee’s speech against bullying was canceled.
The Cumberland Valley School District school board has filed a motion to cancel Pancholy’s lecture next month at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, a community of about 9,000 people about 160 miles west of Philadelphia. It was passed unanimously.
The board came under fire after members expressed homophobic concerns in some quarters about Pancholy’s activism and lifestyle.
Mr. Pancholy played the sleazy assistant to Alec Baldwin’s character on the TV show “30 Rock” and provided the voice of Baljeet in the cartoon “Phineas and Ferb.” He is also an author of children’s books, including The Best At It, about a gay Indian-American boy named Rahul and his experiences dealing with bullying in a small Midwestern town.
“He has labeled himself as an activist who is proud of his lifestyle, but I don’t think that should be imposed on students,” board member Bud Schaffner said at Monday night’s meeting. Ta.
Kelly Pottiger, a member of the local chapter of the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, who was newly elected to the board, said she would like Pancholy to discuss children’s books that deal with bullying faced by LGBTQ characters. He expressed concern that this may be the case. His own experience with “Bullying Prevention and Empathy and Inclusion.”
“Again, that doesn’t discriminate against his lifestyle. It’s his choice, but he’s the one to talk about it,” Pottiger said. “He said that’s not the subject, but that’s the subject of his book.”
Pancholy did not immediately respond to a message sent Wednesday night.
Following the cancellation, a petition was launched asking for the event to be restarted, stating that the decision was made “solely because he is openly gay.”
Trisha Comstock, who has two sons enrolled in the district, started an online petition. By late Wednesday night, the petition had gathered more than 1,000 signatures.
Mr. Schaffner said in a telephone interview that his comments had been misinterpreted and that his statements about Mr. Pancholy’s lifestyle were related to his activism.
“We object to the fact that he is a self-proclaimed political activist,” Schaffner said.
On his website, Pancholy calls himself an “activist” committed to social justice causes. But Schaffner and other board members denounced his activities as political and said they were concerned his speech could violate district policy banning political events. .
“There’s no political intent,” Comstock said in a phone interview. “He’s not trying to pass policies or change minds or anything like that.
“They were hiding what they were saying: ‘We want to take politics out of schools,’ even though they obviously knew it had nothing to do with politics,” she added. .
Comstock said if the policy were applied more broadly, other groups, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, would also be considered activists.
“Do we forbid them from coming and talking to our members?” she said.
It was not immediately clear how the lecture took place or whether the board’s views reflected those of school administrators.
Mountain View Middle School’s principal did not respond to a request for comment.
Comstock, whose children once attended the school, said the board’s decision is not representative of the community.
“And that’s why our community is outraged right now,” she said. “This is not us.”
