Wisconsin students walk out after song cut from concert over Marsha P. Johnson dedication

This story originally appeared on Them.

UPDATE 5/13/26: Students in Watertown, Wisconsin staged a walkout on Wednesday after the school board voted to remove a piece of music dedicated to beloved transgender organizer Marsha P. Johnson from the school’s upcoming spring concert.

Local ABC affiliate WISN reported that hundreds of students left class and staged a protest outside of Watertown High School on Wednesday. With signs like “It’s just music,” “Let them play,” and “We stand with the band,” the students rallied against the decision by the school board made Tuesday night, which some said was made to end “indoctrination.”

“The school board hasn’t listened to what we are saying,” Alexis Fisher, a student at the high school, told the TV station. “We stand for this piece. It is just a piece — it’s music with no lyrics. It’s not like the past of the piece should affect us learning. They’re taking away our learning.”

Original story: A school board in Watertown, Wisconsin has voted 7-1 to remove “A Mother of a Revolution!,” an instrumental piece dedicated to Marsha P. Johnson, from the school’s upcoming spring concert, according to local NBC affiliate WTMJ. The decision led to protest from students, family and community members.

Following the Tuesday vote, the Watertown Wind Symphony will not be allowed to perform the song, which has no lyrics, despite having spent months preparing it for the upcoming show.School board members said the composition flouted the district’s “controversial issues” policy. However, as previously reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, band director Reid LaDew followed the policy and gave parents advance notice about the piece in October.

In a note sent home with students, LaDew wrote, “The purpose behind studying Mother of a Revolution is not to provoke controversy, but to deepen students’ understanding of how music reflects the diverse experiences of humanity.”

Parents were given the option to withdraw their children from performing the song.

Several members of the school board celebrated the 7-1 decision, reminding those protesting that this was exactly the kind of platform they ran on. (Them has previously reported on the right-wing infiltration of many school boards throughout the United States.)

“This is a perfect example of what everyone here ran on, and that’s ending indoctrination and radical curriculum,” board vice president Sam Ouweneel told WTMJ.

Another board member, Christina DeGrave, said,“Political violence should not be celebrated through music or song.”

Board clerk Tammy Fournier criticized LaDew for the selection. “I do think everyone should be appalled, but it should be at your music teacher,” Fournier said.

Students in the class told WTMJ that they had never actually received a lesson on Marsha P. Johnson or LGBTQ+ history as part of the class and were instead simply performing the piece.

Public comment at the May 12 meeting was extended multiple times to accommodate those who spoke in favor of keeping the piece, though their pleas did not change the board’s intent to silence the music.

“Music should not be censored because people don’t like what one person has to say. If you don’t like it, then don’t listen to it,” choir student Layla Turner said, per WTMJ.

One band student, Sophia Anderson, added that the wind symphony “worked so hard for months” in preparing.

“A Mother of a Revolution!” is a 2019 piece by out gay composer Omar Thomas written in “celebration of the bravery of trans women.”

“There is no demographic more deserving, and frankly, long overdue for highlighted heroism and bravery,” Thomas writes of Johnson in his introduction to the piece. “The disco vibe in the latter half of the piece is meant to honor club culture, a sacred space held amongst LGBTQ persons in which to love, live, mourn, heal, strategize, connect, disconnect, and dance in defiance of those outside forces who would seek to do LGBTQ persons harm simply for daring to exist and take up space.”