For a public school in small-town Washington, Gig Harbor High has a remarkably slick website. The home page features images of smiling, diverse-looking students, along with a relatively flattering picture of the school’s concrete exterior. A list of school activities boasts of AP classes, college visits from Wellesley and Cornell, and the TideFest arts fair – “A Gig Harbor Tradition Since 1981.” Overall, the school comes off as classy and welcoming. Nowhere does the site suggest that Gig Harbor students might face discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

But that’s exactly what happened this February, when Dean of Students Keith Nelson saw a surveillance tape of two female students kissing in the lunchroom and sent a copy to one girl’s parents. The parents immediately withdrew her from the district, but word of the incident spread among the student body, ultimately sparking a protest against the perceived invasion of the girls’ privacy.

In an interview with the Seattle Times, Nelson defended his actions. He stated that the girl’s parents had asked to be notified of any unusual behavior their daughter exhibited, and that he would have responded identically had the kissing couple been a heterosexual pair. “They’re paying good money for us to make their kids good citizens,” he said. “Whatever that means to the parents, I’ll do it.”

However, some Gig Harbor students weren’t convinced of the purity of Nelson’s motives. The member of the couple who remains at the school described the kiss as a “peck” and told the Seattle Times, “We weren’t doing anything inappropriate, nothing anyone else wouldn’t do.” On April 30, dozens of students stood outside the school waving peace signs and wearing “free love” shirts to protest what they saw as an improper use of the surveillance equipment.

Many Garfield students can relate to concerns about being watched by school administrators. Last year, rumors regarding security cameras were rampant; depending on who you talked to, they were either A) mounted in every bathroom stall, B) monitored by a crack team of FBI agents, or C) non-functional, a mere ploy to make students behave.

Whatever you believe about Garfield’s cameras, though, they’ve never been used to discriminate against gay or lesbian students. Senior Rhiannon Bronstein, a member of the Garfield Gay-Straight Alliance, described Nelson’s response as “terrible.”

“I think that’s a total violation of their privacy,” Bronstein said. “Especially in a situation like that, when you know you’re endangering them by revealing their sexual orientation to people who might be hostile about it.”

If the incident had occurred at Garfield, Bronstein said, “I would definitely talk to the principal about it and raise an outcry.”

At Gig Harbor, an outcry has been raised and heard by Principal Greg Schellenberg. His response was cautious but conciliatory towards the angered students.

“It wasn’t a violation of policy and procedure…but we all agree it was not a good use of surveillance,” Schellenberg told the Seattle Times. “It was an abnormal use of our equipment and it won’t happen again. This is not a Big Brother institution.”