Openly gay actor Maulik Pancholy was disinvited from speaking at a middle school anti-bullying assembly after concerns were raised about his political activism and what two school board members called his “lifestyle.”
Pancholy’s scheduled appearance at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, was unanimously overturned by the district's school board in a public meeting on April 15.
“If you research this individual, he labels himself as an activist, he is proud of his lifestyle and I don’t think that should be imposed upon our students at any age,” board member Bud Shaffner said at the meeting.
Trisha Comstock, a former parent at the school, started a Change.org petition to reinstate the empathy and anti-bullying assembly.
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“What happened is homophobic. Anyone can go and watch the meeting,” Comstack tells TODAY.com. “This board is close to causing some real harm.”
Why was Maulik Pancholy disinvited?
Board member Kelly Potteiger raised concerns that Pancholy, 50, would discuss his children’s book “The Best at It,” which is about a gay Indian American boy.
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“It’s not discriminating against his lifestyle — that’s his choice,” Potteiger said in the meeting. “But it’s him speaking about it.”
Pancholy played the character Jonathan, Alex Baldwin's devoted assistant, in the sitcom "30 Rock," and also voiced the character Baljeet in "Phineas and Ferb."
Pancholy’s presentation on anti-bullying at Mountain View Middle School was canceled by an 8-0 vote. TODAY.com has reached out to Pancholy for comment.
Brooke Ryerson, an LGBTQ high school sophomore, attended Mountain View Middle School. Ryerson and her mom plan to express their disappointment at the next board meeting on May 6.
“It was going to be an assembly about empathy and anti-bullying,” Ryerson, 16, tells TODAY.com. “But that doesn’t matter to the board. They want to silence us in any way they can.”
The “us” that Ryerson is referring to is the gay community.
“They’re sending that message that they don’t want our identities in the school,” Ryerson says. “I’m lucky that I have such accepting friends and family, but it’s gotta be devastating for the kids who don’t and now feel even more like they’re not wanted somewhere.”
How the school board decided
According to Pancholy’s website, the award-winning author delivers keynotes on the topic of “diversity and inclusion.” Pancholy is a self-described activist and served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Shaffner tells TODAY.com in a phone interview that he had concerns that Pancholy would “go off script” and talk about politics.
“Politically motivated discussions belong at home and not in the classroom,” Shaffner says. “A number of board members went to his website and what stuck out to all of us is that he’s a political activist.”
Cumberland Valley School District spokesperson Tracy Panzer tells TODAY.com that the school principal "works together with staff members to identify award-winning young adult authors to visit with students."
Panzer says that Pancholy’s visit was not on the board’s original agenda.
“However ... one board member motioned to rescind the invitation to this year’s scheduled visit by author Maulik Pancholy,” Panzer says. “Ultimately, the board voted not to allow the visit.”
'This ... could have saved a life.'
Tony Conte, a former Mountain View Middle School student, shared an open letter to Shaffner on Facebook. In the post, Conte reflected on his experience as a closeted gay teen and said that he “considered suicide from time to time.”
“Like a lot of ‘different’ kids, I was teased for reasons I didn’t understand, and I had quite a lot of difficulty building friendships and growing into the healthy mindset that it was okay to be a little different,” Conte wrote.
In high school, Conte said he became friends with another “very different kid.”
“Before we could become close, before we could confide our challenges in each other, he hung himself,” Conte wrote.
“I think that if I had heard from diverse voices like (Pancholy's) in an auditorium setting telling me that it was okay to be different, maybe my middle and high school experience could have been different,” he continued. “A presentation of this sort could have saved a life, like the life of my friend.”
According to the The Trevor Project, LGBTQ students at LGBTQ-affirming schools are 30% less likely to be bullied by their peers. Pancholy's work focuses on youth in the AAPI community.
“When I was a kid, I was often made to feel ashamed for just being who I was. I was made to feel ashamed for being Indian. I was made to feel ashamed for being scrawny and little for my age. I was made to feel shame for being gay," Pancholy said in 2015. "And there were times when I was a kid that I actually felt unsafe for being who I was. And there are times as an adult, where I continue to sometimes feel unsafe for being who I am.”
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