A Northern California high school valedictorian says school officials turned off her microphone during a graduation speech before she had the chance to talk about being sexually assaulted by another student.
Lulabel Seitz was a few minutes into her speech when her mic suddenly went silent. The teen, who will attend Stanford University in the fall, had been giving an uplifting speech on following your dreams and making an impact in the world.
When Seitz started to talk about how Petaluma High School’s class of 2018 have had to overcome many obstacles like the California wildfires and teachers going on strike ‘because they didn’t get the respect or the contracts they deserved’, things started to go south.
‘It is always difficult to say goodbye. But it is not as difficult knowing that we have made an impact on each other and the world around us and we will not be forgotten as a whole,’ she said, in part.
‘And it helps that we have had the support of so many compassionate and dedicated parents, teachers, family members, friends, staff, counselor, custodians and librarians to help us get to where we are today. Because the class of 2018 has demonstrated time and time again that we may be a new generation, but we are not too young to speak up, to dream and to create change, which is why, even when some people on this campus, those same people-,’ Seitz said before the mic went off.
The teen tried to continue giving her speech but started to walk back to her seat when she realized her fellow classmates could not hear her. As Seitz sat down, students began chanting ‘let her speak!’
Seitz told KPIX-TV that she was going to talk about how she was allegedly sexually assaulted by another student – who was in the audience at the ceremony – and the school’s lack of response.
According to the outlet, administrators had approved Seitz’s graduation speech but cut the mic when she veered away from it.
‘The school continually censors students,’ she told the station. ‘It wasn’t an easy thing to do to go up there and say what I said or tried to say.’
The teen said she reported the incident to school officials, but they did not take any action.
Lulabel Seitz said school administrators cut her mic during her graduation speech before she could talk about being sexually assaulted by another student
The teen posted a video of the incident and included her full speech. She also slammed the school for censoring students
The school responded telling the outlet that it could not address the accusations, but ‘when issues of sexual assault come to our attention, local law enforcement has initial jurisdiction and determines the course of action’.
Seitz posted a YouTube video of the incident saying the school abruptly ended her speech out of ‘fear of the truth’. The video has been viewed more than 28,000 times.
She also included what she had planned to say to end her speech.
‘It helps that we had the support of compassionate and dedicated teachers, friends, parents, counselors, custodians, and librarians throughout the years. Learning on a campus in which some people defend perpetrators of sexual assault and silence their victims – we didn’t let that drag us down. … Even after four years of working our hardest and becoming the best class Petaluma High has ever seen, just to be told that our love of learning, art, drama, music – anything – wasn’t valuable enough to be funded – we didn’t let that drag us down either… As such, we will never be forgotten. How could we be?’