Edison High principal resigns, denies move is tied to controversy over student-made clip for Pride month

Edison High School’s principal announced her resignation from the position she has held for the past 10 years in a message sent to students, families and staff Wednesday morning, in the wake of controversy stirred by conservative outlets over a student-made video celebrating Pride month.

Jennifer Graves will serve as assistant principal at the Huntington Beach Adult School, the educator wrote in her letter.

In a brief interview Wednesday, Graves told the Daily Pilot she was saddened to leave her role at Edison, but she was also excited to take on new challenges.

“It was such a hard decision to make,” Graves said, sounding as though she was choking back tears Wednesday. “I’m definitely going to miss all of the kids, my staff and everyone who was a part of the Charger family. I’m from this community, and it was an honor and a pleasure to serve it.”

The move was unrelated to the reaction of some parents and conservative outlets to a student-made video celebrating Pride month, Graves said. A recorded exchange posted to social media involving students expressing displeasure while watching it and a teacher who threatens to punish them for acting out drew a firestorm of attention, as well as comments from local and county officials.

“That [incident] had nothing to do with it,” Graves said of her transfer to a new position.

The video in question is a brief clip featured in an episode of Edison High’s Bolt TV. At times, it depicts LGBTQ+ couples holding hands or touching their foreheads together. But it does not explicitly feature kissing or graphically sexual content.

“At Edison, we should make all students feel welcome here, no matter gender or sexual orientation,” the video’s narrator says over footage of LGBTQ+ students. “So if you are out and proud, closeted or even just an ally, be proud of who you are. Most importantly, don’t forget to love each other. Happy Pride month.”

Some parents, along with a collection of TV and internet pundits, found the video obscene and took issue with the fact that students were threatened with punishment for expressing disapproval with it. They accused school officials of attempting to push a progressive agenda on youth.

“Rather than listen to his students, the teacher threatened them with supervision and to give them detention the following year,” Huntington Beach Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark said during public comments at a Huntington Beach Union High School District school board meeting on June 13. “At no time was the teacher concerned with the students’ visceral reaction as they watched video clips of couples in intimate positions and poses. In my opinion, it was not the students being inappropriate.”

That meeting took place the night before fliers demonizing both the LGBTQ+ and Jewish communities were found on lawns and on the street in a neighborhood less than a mile away from Edison High School.

In response to that apparent hate speech, three liberal members of the Huntington Beach City Council brought forth a resolution specifically denouncing antisemitism, white supremacy and anti-LGBTQ+ hate. But during a June 22 meeting, Mayor Tony Strickland proposed a substitute motion, expanding the item to reference hate against Catholics, Christians, Black people, Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Indians, Persians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Mormons and white people.

“I want to make it clear that there’s more hate out there,” Strickland said during the meeting. “Huntington Beach welcomes everybody.”

Inclusiveness was ostensibly why the conservative majority of the City Council voted earlier this year to stop flying the Pride flag at public buildings in June. Supporters of the move said it was in the interest of fairness, because current law prohibits the city from displaying non-governmental flags.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors made a similar decision on Tuesday, June 6, based on essentially the same reasoning. It’s unclear if any municipality in Orange County has ever been cited for breaking laws prohibiting the display of non-governmental flags.