Roncalli senior taking a stand to ‘fight for what is right’

When Roncalli’s star running back ran out onto the field waving a rainbow flag prior to the Rebels’ first football game of the season, he didn’t expect it to become a viral image that landed him on a national television stage.

Elijah Mahan was just doing what he believed was the right thing to do.

He was frustrated because that month, the southside Catholic high school confirmed that it had placed longtime guidance counselor Shelly Fitzgerald on administrative leave after learning that she had been married to a woman for the last four years.

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Fitzgerald received an outpouring of support from the Roncalli student body, many of whom wore rainbow attire to the school’s first football game of the season at Southport on Aug. 17.

It was Mahan’s action, though, that was the most visible. A photograph of him waving a rainbow flag in the air before the game made the rounds on social media — and it was picked up by Forbes, which featured the Bargersville resident in an article about high school football players acting in protest.

“At first, I didn’t even know what Forbes was,” Mahan said, adding that he figured out that it was a big deal from how people around him reacted.

“They’d say it really dramatically,” he said with a laugh. “’It’s Forbes.’”

While many other people who act in protest do so to bring attention to a cause, Mahan had no intention of becoming the face of the cause for Fitzgerald’s case in particular and gay rights in general.

But because he’s one of the more visible members of Roncalli’s student body — in addition to his football achievements, Mahan also had the lead in the school musical last fall and qualified for the state wrestling finals — he naturally became the face of the student body’s show of support.

“A lot of people respect him and look up to him,” said junior Maddy Aldrich, Roncalli’s junior class president. “He’s just a kid people follow. He’s a role model.”

Mahan credits Aldrich with bringing together a group of six students leading the charge to advocate for gay rights and bring attention to Fitzgerald’s situation. That group, which also includes openly gay senior class president Dominic Conover as well as Anna Clodfelter, Reagan O’Gara and Raquel Ramsey, placed approximately 200 flowers in Fitzgerald’s office after the school placed her on leave, and they passed out rainbow stickers, buttons and ribbons to classmates.

When demand got too high, the group started a GoFundMe page called Shelly’s Voice to raise money for the cause. The page had raised almost $4,500 as of Monday afternoon, when it received a major boost.

Fitzgerald’s story had caught the attention of Ellen DeGeneres, who flew her out for an interview on her talk show and then surprised her by bringing out Mahan, Aldrich, Clodfelter, O’Gara and Ramsey. (The show’s producers had reached out to Mahan after seeing his photo online.)

DeGeneres mentioned Shelly’s Voice, and the added publicity led to donations of more than $1,000 in the six hours after the segment aired — on top of the check for $25,000 that was presented to the students on the show.

That huge windfall caught Mahan and his friends completely off guard.

“I thought we were going to get a T-shirt or something,” he said.

With the extra money it now has, Mahan says that Shelly’s Voice hopes to collaborate with a gay rights nonprofit for a rally or some other initiative to advocate for equality and change.

Which is really all Mahan has been about from the beginning.

“I think it was important to show people that there’s not just a certain group of people that support this,” Mahan said. “It’s not just the LGBT community at our school. There’s also an athlete who supports this.

“I wanted people to know that I’m not closed-minded, and that I fight for whatever’s right. I’m an advocate for any LGBTQ movement, any race movement, anything that I believe is morally right.”

Roncalli said it does not comment on personnel matters, but a statement by Archbishop Charles Thompson of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said in part that “the issue concerning Ms. Fitzgerald’s employment is not about sexual orientation, but about the Church’s teaching that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman.”

Joe Hollowell, Roncalli High School president and Gina Fleming, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis released a joint statement that said, in part: “For 50 years, Roncalli has been rooted in prayer and faith and as such we have been praying for all in our school community, including Shelly Fitzgerald and her family.”

Mahan, who is not Catholic, says that the stance he and his classmates have taken is not rooted in a desire to change the church’s belief structure. But, he says, Fitzgerald loved her job, did it well and didn’t force her sexuality or lifestyle on anybody else.

“Instead of viewing it as that this is just a teaching of the Catholic church and we have to go by that,” he said, “I view it as a mom who has a family and who’s basically losing a job that she’s been doing for 16 years, that she’s loved and put all of her hard work into.

“We just want our teacher back.”

And while he disagrees with Roncalli and the church on this issue, Mahan says he has never once considered leaving the school. He doesn’t want to run away from the problem, he says; he and his friends are determined to help the school change.

Aldrich, who represents the third generation of Roncalli students in her family, echoed that sentiment.

“This is my mark on the school,” she said. “I want to make the school I love even better.”

Principal Chuck Weisenbach said he couldn’t discuss the students’ advocacy work, saying he can not comment on personnel matters.

In late August, the school released a statement that said students, teachers and staff had been given leeway to show support for Fitzgerald, and that students were allowed to wear rainbow attire and accessories to school and sporting events.

“We believe there is a delicate balance between showing support for a staff member and advocating for a specific cause or political position,” the statement said. “As such, signs hung throughout the school advertising and advocating for a “Pride Day” were removed,” the statement said.

“We do not allow for this type of advocacy in our school, regardless of the cause or political position.”

The students behind Shelly’s Voice have no plans to let up anytime soon; they’re determined to spark some form of change at the school, preferably one that leads to Fitzgerald being reinstated and the language in the school’s contracts being reworded to avoid such incidents in the future.

Regardless of whether they’re successful in those efforts, Mahan seems to have found a calling. This experience, he says, has only made him more passionate about standing up for other causes that he believes in — including, but not limited to, gay rights. He has been involved in talks with school officials for the past year as part of efforts to help Roncalli improve its diversity and awareness, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s advocating for Fitzgerald and the LGBTQ community now.

How it all plays out in this particular case remains to be seen, but Mahan already knows one thing for sure.

“I’m going to have to rewrite my college essay,” he said.