NJ Salutatorian has critical speech cut off

(Published: Friday, June 20, 2008)

A student intending to make a speech at her high school graduation criticizing school administrators was cut off in mid-sentence and told she had to leave the ceremony.

Jennifer Chau, the salutatorian at Mainland Regional High School, started to criticize school administration Thursday night for allegedly playing favorites among students. She began the speech, scrapping a text that was approved in advance by the school.

"I know this is a community that values education," she said. "That is why you need to know what is really going on behind the walls of Mainland's administrat-"

With that, a school employee cut off her microphone, and the principal, Robert Blake, told her she would have to leave.

She did, as students and some parents chanted "Let her speak!" and "Finish!"

"They never listen to us students," Chau told The Press of Atlantic City afterward. "All this school values is connections, not education. You have to know someone to be able to do anything."

Chau's dissatisfaction with the school involves a dispute over her not receiving credit for an honors class she took in her freshman year. She claims that was one of the reasons she finished in the second spot in her graduating class, behind a student whose mother is a Board of Education member.

Blake, the school principal, defended his decision to end Chau's speech.

"The student was regressing beyond what we worked with her on, and that's the end of it," he said. "I've met with her on a number of occasions, and I'd be glad to talk with her about her (complaints). This is certainly not the place. In this venue, we are responsible for what is said out here. This is not somebody's front yard."

Chau plans to attend Georgetown University in the fall.

I smell a rat...