New Jersey Students Protest After School Changes King And Queen Outcome Of All-female Homecoming Ball

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Students at a New Jersey school participated in a sit-in during school hours Monday to protest the administration’s decision to swap the homecoming king and queen winners.

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Two students were declared winners of the titles of king and queen at the Passaic County Technical Institute in Wayne, New Jersey, it reported. NorthJersey.com .

That clearly didn’t sit well with the staff, so they broadened the competition by holding two more elections, and the school opened the titles to the four highest recipients of votes on the ballot. The result? Two children were added, joining Zoe Nelson as king.

Jyckell Pérez remained the only queen.

“When I asked, ‘Why am I the only queen?’ They said, ‘Oh, you’re special,’” Perez said of the response from school officials.

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Nelson, who hoped to broaden the school’s gender vision by running for the title of king, has been intimidated and threatened since he protested the school’s actions.

“It has been a lot,” he told the outlet.

However, the organizers of the protest, which was attended by about 1,000, showed the students that the administration did not value the girl who won the title of king.

Nelson and Pérez reportedly didn’t really know each other when the pageant began, but after the school began changing the rules to prevent a female reign, the two teenagers teamed up to fight back.

Both young women believe the elections were an attempt to placate students who were uncomfortable with a prom queen, the outlet reported.

Pérez entered the homecoming event and accepted her title of queen, but Nelson skipped the contest.

“I felt like the school would use me to show they were inclusive,” Nelson said, noting that the school even used one of the protest slogans, ‘Breaking down the barriers,’ for the event.

Pérez attended to prove a point.

“I wanted to be a voice for them,” Pérez said of Nelson and the other fans. “I still wanted to walk to make sure there was some representation of what we had done.”