Many parents in our group have been sharing images of the 2021 Huntley High School yearbook, which contains a two-page spread discussing the impeachment of President Trump, the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris, and another two-page spread promoting the Covid vaccines.
Parents in our group have issues with the fact that no previous Huntley High School yearbook appears to have praised the successes of a current president while denigrating the previous president.
The “Inauguration Day” portion of the yearbook reads, in part, “Trump leaves office, being the first president to not attend the inauguration of the incoming president.”
This is a false statement, and our parents are appalled that it appears as a “fact” in the yearbook that our students will have as a keepsake for their lifetimes. In fact, five presidents have not attended the inauguration of their predecessors:
- John Adams did not attend the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801
- John Quincy Adams did not attend the inauguration of Andrew Jackson in 1829
- Martin Van Buren did not attend the inauguration of William Henry Harrison in 1841
- Andrew Johnson did not attend the inauguration of Ulysses S Grant in 1869
- Richard Nixon did not attend the inauguration of Gerald Ford in 1974
We also take issue with the text “capitol building sieged by right-wing protesters.” The political leanings of everyone who walked through the Capitol on 1/6/21 cannot possibly be known.
The term “siege,” while used in the media, is not factual considering that mainstream news also reported that Capitol police opened the doors and welcomed rally attendees inside. Surveillance video also shows officers hugging and fist-bumping attendees, and moving bicycle racks to allow their entry to the building.
While some violence did unfortunately occur on this day, the vast majority of attendees walked through doors that had been opened for them and continued walking through the Capitol in an orderly manner. (View the video.)
We do not believe political discussion with a particular slant, or propaganda, belongs in the yearbook at all. One of our parents emailed the HHS yearbook coordinator and received this reply:
Good morning,
Thank you for reaching out and expressing your concern.I hope I’m able to clarify a few points to alleviate some of your frustration. The yearbook is a historical document, so the students include coverage during every election year, focusing on interviewing students of age to vote. The book is a student-run publication and the students choose what to cover and include, while I ensure they show journalistic integrity showcasing all sides of each topic.
If your daughter would like to return the book, we’re able to refund your payment of $50.
Other parents in our group pointed out that neither the 2008 nor 2012 yearbooks mentioned the inauguration of President Obama, and the 2016 book did not mention the inauguration of President Trump either. The statement that these books include coverage during every election year is simply untrue.
You may verify this for yourself. The Huntley Area Public Library has copies of all of the HHS yearbooks, which you may borrow to view on premises. Here are page-by-page videos of HHS yearbooks in previous election years: 2008, 2012, and 2016 HHS. Do you see any political spreads such as the one in the current yearbook? None appear in any of these three books.
Additionally, our parents take issue with the pro-Covid-vaccination yearbook spread, as equal space was not devoted to the side effects of the vaccine, nor the current number of Covid vaccine deaths. At the time of this writing, the number of deaths due to the Covid vaccination, according to the FDA and CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is more than 150,000 people.
It would have been better to present the pandemic topic in an unbiased manner as it appeared in the previous HHS yearbook. Here is an image of last year’s yearbook page spread that discusses the Covid pandemic and its impact on student life: 