Living Life Abundantly

Autistic salutatorian Eric Duquette gave a memorable speech to his classmates.

A high school in Maine has denied a senior his high school diploma for blowing a kiss to his family during the graduation ceremony.

Sounds like joke right? Nope, its for real.

I don’t care if the kid did a double somersault ending in a split to accept his diploma, that school has no right to deny him his diploma. He earned it. That young man could’ve done a host of offensive gestures. All he did was show some love to his loved ones and you want to keep his diploma over that? Give him his diploma Bonny Eagle High School and stop being stupid!

When I graduated from high school I had a similar problem, the difference being I turned in a fake speech and spoke my mind in the “real speech” which included a gesture choreographed and qued with my class (NO we didn’t give the finger, we gave the hand, the show Martin and the whole hand thing was very popular back then)… I didn’t get my diploma until I was already in college in another state. My mother had to physically go and meet with the assistant principal to get it. So ridiculous!

When will schools realize that young adults will always be young adults…I’ve been to several college graduations—not much better in terms of the behavior of graduates. People are excited about being done with school! If they accomplished the task let them bask in it…not everyone makes it to see a high school graduation (hence America’s drop out rate). If a kid wants to celebrate and blow kisses let them do it, at least they aren’t shooting up the place. There are far worse things that a high school graduate could do!