HS Principal Threatens to Destroy Student for Speaking Out Against School's Abstinence-Only Policies, Fails Miserably
After raising a voice to her high school's damaging abstinence-only policies, one West Virginia senior says she was threatened with future-imperiling punishment by her principal.
George Washington High School student body vice president Katelyn Campbell told The Charleston Gazette she felt her fellow students should be better informed about birth control, given that West Virginia "has the ninth highest pregnancy rate in the U.S."
"With the policy at GW, under [Principal] George Aulenbacher, information about birth control and sex education has been suppressed," Campbell is quoted as saying. "Our nurse wasn't allowed to talk about where you can get birth control for free in the city of Charleston."
Campbell's last straw was what she called a "slut-shaming abstinence assembly" led by conservative speaker Pam Stenzel.
Stenzel has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to convince young people that they will face dire consequences for becoming sexually active. At GW's assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that "if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you" and "I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you're going to be promiscuous." She also asserted that condoms aren't safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection.
Campbell took it upon herself to contact the ACLU and reach out to the media to voice her objections to the event.
Aulenbacher, Campbell said, did not take kindly to her actions, ordering her to come to his office, where he threatened to call Wellesley College, which had already accepted Campbell, and tell them she has "bad character."
"He threatened me and my future in order to put forth his own personal agenda and make teachers and students feel they cant speak up because of fear of retaliation," Campbell told the Gazette.
Unfortunately for Aulenbacher, his plan backfired rather magnificently.
Katelyn Campbell, #Wellesley is excited to welcome you this fall. bit.ly/13jqRet
— Wellesley College (@Wellesley) April 17, 2013
After Campbell filed an injunction against Aulenbacher over his threats, Wellesley College took to Twitter to assure Campbell that the school "is excited to welcome you this fall."
And things may get worse still for Aulenbacher: Students plan to bring up his actions at a local board of education meeting taking place tonight.