Plot Thickens in Expulsion of Oregon Student Over Gay Film

Posted on | March 16, 2006

Looks like a lot of us had the wool pulled over us this week. As I reported yesterday, West Linn High School student Brandon Flyte was expelled over a scene in a gay-themed film he made called "Brokeback High". The scene in question contained two shirtless high school students cuddling. Brandon claimed that he was told to remove the scene by school administrators and when he showed an unedited version was forced to transfer in what amounted to an expulsion from school. I, and many other bloggers, picked up on the story and commented on it. Then this morning the story takes another twist. While the controversy over the scene was real and he got in trouble for showing it, the school is claiming that Brandon Flyte lied about the expulsion.

The school disputes that Brandon was never punished with suspension, expulsion, or the mandatory transfer that the teen discussed on his website. The community college issue was brought up because the school says Brandon was behind in credits and this was offered to him as a way to make them up without having to repeat another semester or year at the school. According to school superintendent Roger Woehl Brandon’s post on his website, which the teen says he never expected to get as much attention as it did, has thrown the school into some chaos. Administration has received thousands of e-mails from people who were angry over the incident Brandon described. Among them were threats of physical violence against administration and threats of arson towards the school itself. The threatening e-mails were given to police to investigate. Woehl also claims that the administration’s objection to the cuddling scene it told Brandon to remove when he showed "Brokeback High" to his English class had nothing to do with homophobia and that the demand would have still been made if it had been a boy and a girl in the scene instead. The assignment that Flyte made the film for banned scenes of containing violence, sex, or nudity. The teens in Brandon’s film, in which he also starred, were only shirtless and this the film contained no actual nudity as a sheet covered everything below their torsos.

Brandon updated his site to dispute the claims made by the school Woehl and defend himself as well. He says he never expected the story to get the publicity that it did and states that news media, in the form of CNN, MSNBC, and The Advocate among other, contacted him and that he did not call them with the story.

"I never expected this level of publicity. I posted this in a few places I thought it might be of interest, but, maybe foolishly, never expected more than a few dozen people to notice or care."

One thing that Brandon mentions that does support his claim is the fact that when he showed the film to his English class, the edit was made. The film generated some buzz at the school and Brandon was asked to show it in his Marine Biology class where he showed the unedited version. Flyte posed the following question in disputing Woehl’s version of events:

If as Woehl claims I was landed in trouble for not following the guidelines of the assignment, and was not a blanket ban on the content of my film, why were the guidelines of the CLASS assignment upheld in a DIFFERENT class?

He makes a very valid point. While the English class assignment guidelines may have forced the edit in that class, why should they hold any sway over a completely unrelated class in a completely different department? If there had been any objection to the scene at that point, the teacher should have been the one to make the call about it and not the administration. In the article in The Oregonian, superintendent Woehl cites other disciplinary problems Brandon has had at West Linn High School b ut would not elaborate on them. While Brandon has been very candid about his lack of attendance the other disciplinary problems are news to him:

To address Superintendent Woehl’s claims, why did he refuse to elaborate on my "series of misbehaviors"? Aside from my sketchy attendance — to which even the Oregonian recognizes I have already admitted — I have had no prior disciplinary actions taken on me. What misbehaviors is he talking about?

I am a little saddened by this turn of events and pissed off because it all comes down to which side do you want to believe and I am having a hard time with the decision. On one hand we have a teen with admitted problems with the school and could have engineered this whole "scandal" in an act of vengeance which the school seems to claim. On the other hand we have a school that, given the recent history of gays in public schools if the ACLU lawsuits have been any indicator, could have screwed Brandon over the way he claimed and is calling him a liar in an attempt at damage control when the story got legs. Both options are possible and plausible.

In the end I guess I have to reverse my judgment of the school and withhold making any further judgments on this issue for now and wait and see what happens further because all we know at this point is that someone is lying, but we do not know who.

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External Links:

The Oregonian - High schooler in trouble for lie on Web site

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Comments

3 Responses to “Plot Thickens in Expulsion of Oregon Student Over Gay Film”

North Dallas Thirty
March 16th, 2006 @ 4:22 pm

In the article in The Oregonian, superintendent Woehl cites other disciplinary problems Brandon has had at West Linn High School b ut would not elaborate on them. While Brandon has been very candid about his lack of attendance the other disciplinary problems are news to him:

Probably because student records of such things are usually considered confidential, and there has to be a good reason for releasing them?

And be realistic; the only reason you’re having trouble making the decision is because you flew off the handle and started shrieking “homophobia” based solely on the sketchy story from a seventeen-year-old kid.
Bob
March 16th, 2006 @ 7:09 pm

I’m 14 and in high school, and I know firsthand not to trust school officials in any matter. I’m a model student, have a 4.0, and have never gotten in serious trouble in school, and I can tell you that I believe him wholeheartedly. The school officials can get away with saying whatever they wish, so it makes sense that if they were correct, they’d at least stick to their story but instead, they have the option to permanantly discredit him so they won’t have to deal with the reprocussions of their actions because nobody would investigate. School officials are dismissing of anything complaints or arguments that students make, and feel that they can fend off any questioning whatsoever by telling bullshit to the media, because they know that they have the power to do so. Not everything is cut and dry, and by finding a student like this they knew that they could cover their posteriors if they were questioned, should they need to, because he’s not credible due to his record. Nobody knows what really happened initially, and it’s not at all far fetched that they may have lied to him about whether or not his leaving was to be voluntary.
They also never did acknowledge what the final event was that set them off, even if he had broken school rules beforehand, as it is obvious that this movie violated none of their policies, so one is forced to wonder what their reason really is. As he said, movies with straight sex scenes and violence are allowed, this is absolutely not something that they would normally punish.
TikiHead
March 21st, 2006 @ 3:55 pm

North Dallas Thirty -

So how did the word ’shrieking’ add anything to your already weak ‘poolemic?’ (That’s like a polemic, but with sh*t added)