VOORHEES TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A New Jersey high school valedictorian was silenced briefly during commencement remarks about mental illness and his own experience as a queer-identifying teen surviving high school.
Now, the Voorhees school district wants a federal agency to review whether it acted improperly in muting Bryce Dershem’s microphone and allegedly crumpling the paper copy of his speech on the dias before 450 graduates and their families.
Eastern Regional Camden County High School District Superintendent Robert Cloutier told the Courier Post, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Monday he has directed school district attorney Anthony Padovani “to contact an appropriate government agency to conduct an independent review.”
Padovani said he’s filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Cherry Hill, requesting the agency investigate whether the school district discriminated against Dershem.
“There is an act of discrimination that is now being alleged against us,” Padovani said. “We can’t really conduct our investigation … let an independent see if we did anything wrong. That’s fair.”
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Padovani is in the process of collecting materials for the civil rights office, he said.
Padovani and Cloutier said the school district is prepared to fully cooperate with the review.
When Dershem, 18, stepped to the microphone on June 17 with…
