In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion receives a magical, mysterious liquid from the Wizard that takes away his fearfulness. After a recent incident, it’s clear to me that several Grady parents need a dose.

When it was announced that principal Vincent Murray was going to be reassigned, the majority of the vocal response from the community was against Murray’s removal. In order to present a balanced perspective on the issue, The Southerner contacted parents that, based on multiple sources, were in support of Murray’s removal.

 All the parents we contacted refused to comment. We can’t have an open discussion about a new direction for our school if one side won’t come to the table.

At Grady, students and teachers have always been able to voice their beliefs and views without judgment or backlash. James Campbell is a libertarian social studies teacher at Grady, a school with a vastly liberal student body. Even a teacher who holds political views that differ from the majority of the student body is completely accepting of everyone’s opinions and beliefs. During class, Campbell even told a student, “You have a bunch of ideas and opinions in your head that are different than mine, and that is a lovely thing.”

Campbell’s statement is representative of the attitude held by nearly all students and teachers of acceptance and openness. It’s time for parents to take a lesson from the students and teachers.

After The Southerner was unable to find anyone willing to go on the record in support of the decision, we filed an open records request, asking for all emails related to Murray’s removal. We found that parents emailed Erroll Davis and board members in support of Murray’s removal. In doing so, the parents were attempting to sway the Board of Education not to overrule Erroll Davis’s decision to remove Dr. Murray.

Managing editor Archie Kinnane posted an article on The Southerner website including the names of parents in support of Murray’s removal without obtaining the parents’ permission. Two parents named in the article wrote lengthy emails, upset that their names were used without consent. The parents weren’t bold enough to step out from behind the safety of their keyboards and stand behind their opinions in public.

Within hours of receiving the angry emails, Kinnane and The Southerner advisers made the decision to redact the names from the story and make them anonymous sources.

I disagreed with their decision. The Southerner had the legal and moral right to reveal who these parents were.

It is a tenet of democratic government that leaders can, and should, be influenced by those whom they represent. By expressing their opinion about a decision made by a government official, these parents were shaping (or attempting to shape) government. The parents, and anyone for that matter, has the right to keep their opinion private. But when private citizens submit their opinions to elected officials in writing, they are entering their opinion into the public record.

The parents have the right to advocate that Murray be removed from his position but to do so anonymously is cowardly. The Southerner should have either kept their names in the story without the parents’ consent or should have taken their statements out altogether. I don’t believe we should have given them a platform to voice their opinion if they weren’t willing to use their names.

These parents need to step out of the shadows so we can begin an honest discussion about the best direction for Grady and what we want in a new principal. If you have an opinion, let’s hear it. But if you’re not willing to stand by that opinion, you shouldn’t have a seat at the table.