Utah: School district defends banning Pride flags from schools
LGBTQ Nation reported September 25 on a Utah school district that banned Pride flags from its schools for being too "politically charged." The Davis School District justified the ban with a state mandate on keeping classrooms "politically neutral," and the district alleged that any flag other than the American flag would be in violation of that mandate. Yet the Utah Board of Education, even if it allows its districts to make their own decisions, has said in a statement that the rainbow flag isn't specifically defined in code as a political symbol. Nation writer Juwan J. Holmes noted that Salt Lake City schools, in contrast, have allowed Pride flags, among many others.
United States: Police departments continue to adopt LGBT sensitivity training
NBC reported on September 25 that many police departments across the United States are mandating LGBTQ sensitivity training for officers. Some departments have done so voluntarily, while others have been forced by lawsuits. NBC writer Finbarr Toesland described at length the larger context of the development, starting with 2020's violence against pro-LGBT protesters in New York at the hands of the NYPD. Toesland then delved further into the history of the relationship between the LGBT community and the police, which has been "long strained," and he expressed both optimism and skepticism about the training programs. Christy Mallory, legal director at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute, called the programs a "positive step forward." Jason Rosenburg and Marti Gould Cummings, two of the protestors attacked by the NYPD in 2020, said a much more radical transformation of policing was needed.