March 26--Marissa Dupont is president of the student council at Hinsdale South High School. She's student life editor for the yearbook, drum major for the Hornets marching band, captain of the girls' badminton and swim and dive teams and an academic superstar who would be embarrassed if we spelled out the details here. She's 17. She's awesome.
In the last two weeks, she's been called a tart, a bully, an "uppity little gal," a "little Hillary Clinton" and a number of worse, even unprintable things -- all by online commenters, most of them writing under cowardly aliases. You know who you are.
It's all because she got involved in the April 7 school board election -- and pushed back against adults who tried to stop her.
It began March 12, when a District 86 school board member objected to Dupont passing out campaign literature on campus.
That encounter and the continuing fallout have been covered extensively by reporter Kimberly Fornek of the Pioneer Press. The stories have generated hundreds of comments, many of them jaw-dropping.
The board member in question, Claudia Manley, didn't respond to our request for a comment. She hasn't responded to Fornek's requests either.
So here's the story, according to Dupont and others: Dupont and an adult were handing out palm cards outside the school auditorium, where the senior class play was about to begin, when they were approached by Manley.
The cards urge voters to elect a slate of three candidates. A rival slate is aligned with the current board majority, which includes Manley, though she is not up for re-election this year.
Dupont says Manley told her that passing out campaign literature was inappropriate and accused Dupont of ruining the class play. The exchange became so heated that Dupont left in tears. She returned for the next night's performance after securing assurances from Superintendent Bruce Law that she wasn't violating any rules.
Manley confronted her again, Dupont says, this time saying that school board policy prohibits the distribution of campaign materials on campus. Dupont says Manley harassed her and took photos with a cellphone. The principal and a police liaison eventually intervened.
That weekend, Dupont launched an online petition demanding that Manley resign or be booted from the board.
"Students aren't allowed to bully each other; they get suspended if they do," it says. "Teachers aren't allowed to harass students; they get fired if they do. If teachers and students can't behave in that manner, why should District 86 Board member Claudia Manley be allowed to?"
By Wednesday, more than 1,200 people had joined the petition.
Meanwhile, the trolls were all over the news stories, attacking Dupont, her parents, the candidates, Manley and each other.
On Friday, one of them identified himself as the campaign manager for three school board candidates -- the ones opposed by the slate Dupont was promoting -- and apologized "for my inexcusably poor choice of words in several online exchanges." If anything, it's an understatement.
Dupont says the comments bothered her at first, but she realizes they are "ridiculous and untrue." As for that apology, well, she'd like to hear it in person. She and her parents spoke at a school board meeting this week, repeating the call for Manley to leave or be ousted.
The crowd that packed the cafeteria that night cheered when Dupont stepped to the microphone and said, "I'm Marissa."
Manley's chair was empty. The other board members didn't act on Dupont's request.
Dupont says she was disappointed by the board's response but heartened by the crowd. "I'm surrounded by people who support me," she says.
Will anything come of it? The district's administration is investigating the matter. The school board is re-evaluating its policy on distributing materials on campus. In the meantime, it's no longer allowed. The election is less than two weeks away.
What are the young adults who are being educated in District 86 supposed to make of all of this? We hope their teachers are helping them to weigh this disheartening drama against all those classroom lessons about democracy, free speech and representative government.
It's the students, after all, who have the greatest stake in the outcome of this election. The school board ought to welcome their participation wholeheartedly.
We hope the members of the Hinsdale South Class of 2015 will learn from the example of their student council president -- not from the adults who tried to silence her.
