School board cancels anti-bullying talk by gay actor because of his “lifestyle”

A Pennsylvania school board unanimously canceled 30 Rock actor Maulik Pancholy’s anti-bullying talk to middle school students because of the actor’s gay “lifestyle.” Some community members are petitioning for the board to reverse its decision.

Pancholy — a gay, Indian-American comedic actor and author whose 2022 book about standing up to homophobic bullying, Nikhil Out Loud, won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Middle Grade Literature — was scheduled to give a talk to Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg. Pancholy, who served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, delivers public talks on “diversity and inclusion.”

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However, at an April 15 public meeting of the Cumberland Valley School District’s school board, board member Bud Shaffner objected to Pancholy’s scheduled talk, stating, “If you research this individual, he labels himself as an activist, he is proud of his lifestyle and I don’t think that should be imposed upon our students at any age.”

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Fellow board member Kelly Potteiger, a member of the local chapter of the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, agreed. She worried he would mention his 2019 children’s book, The Best at It, which features a gay, Indian-American child. “It’s not discriminating against his lifestyle — that’s his choice,” Potteiger said while explaining her discrimination against Pancholy. “It’s him speaking about it [that’s the problem].”

Shaffner told NBC News that he worried the actor would “go off script” and talk about politics. “Politically motivated discussions belong at home and not in the classroom,” Shaffner says. “A number of board members went to his website and what stuck out to all of us is that he’s a political activist.”

After raising the objections, the school board voted 8-0 to cancel Pancholy’s talk. Discussion of the talk wasn’t an official part of the board’s stated meeting agenda, denying community members the opportunity to comment on the matter beforehand.

In an open letter addressed to Shaffner, 40-year-old community member Tony Conte wrote that he felt “desperately lonely” as a closeted, bullied student in middle school and high school. One of his similarly bullied classmates killed himself

“I think that if I had heard from diverse voices like [Pancholy’s] in an auditorium setting telling me that it was okay to be different maybe my middle and high school experience could have been different,” Conte wrote. “A presentation of this sort could have saved a life, like the life of my friend.”

“If the CEO of Apple, the CEO of Dow, the CEO of Macy’s, or the CEO of Land O’Lakes wanted to host a presentation for middle school students in the [Cumberland Valley] district about treating each other with kindness and respect, would you also cancel their presentations because all of those high performing professionals are gay and proud of the lifestyle they lead?” Conte asked, urging Shaffner and the board to reconsider its decision.

Community member Trisha Comstock, who has two children in the school district, began a Change.org petition asking the board to reverse its decision.

“Being LGBTQ+ isn’t a dirty little secret to protect our students from. To have someone with Maulik’s life experiences would have been inspirational for our students,” Comstock wrote. “The cancellation of this assembly sends a harmful message to our students – that being different is something to be ashamed of or hidden away. We must challenge this narrative.”