Nantucket Schools Revise Policy, Address Concerns After Visiting Speaker Ignites Controversy

Nantucket Public Schools revised its policy on vetting visiting speakers and formally addressed concerns following backlash for hosting motivational speaker Maxamillian Dutton, who was brought in to address the Nantucket High School (NHS) student body last Friday. In an email message, Superintendent Beth Hallett informed parents, students, and teachers that the school is establishing a committee to review speakers and ensure they align with the school’s vision.

Dutton has made comments on his public Instagram page that some teachers, parents, and students characterized as misogynistic, including saying in one video that “you’re not a real Christian woman if you are not submitting to your husband” and “a good man will get his wife to submit to him.” That Instagram post was published the day of his appearance at NHS, and referenced a passage in Ephesians, a book in the New Testament of the Bible, which states: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”

“On Friday, motivational speaker Maxamillian Dutton visited Nantucket High School to speak with students and staff about the importance of building confidence, believing in self-worth, and understanding the role that each person plays in fostering a positive school culture,” Hallett wrote. “While his message was engaging and uplifting, it has since come to our attention that some of Mr. Dutton’s public views reflect perspectives about women that are inconsistent with our school’s values of respect, inclusion, and equity. We were not aware of these perspectives beforehand, as they were not evident on his professional website. We want to be clear that Nantucket Public Schools does not condone messaging that demeans or restricts the dignity or agency of any individual.”

In the message, which was sent to parents Saturday night, Hallett committed to creating a new committee tasked with reviewing speakers and professional development providers to “make sure that their messaging, both professional and personal, aligns with NPS’s core values, vision, and mission.”

On his website, Dutton describes himself as a “U.S. Marine, mindset coach, and motivational speaker.” In other motivational speeches given by Dutton that the Current reviewed, he focused primarily on self-betterment, independence, and toughness. Dutton did not respond to requests for comment about the school’s reaction to his speaking engagement.

Dutton’s Instagram comments drew backlash from some members of the NPS community following his appearance last Friday.

“What he has posted on Instagram is horrifying. It is very clear from a quick search what his opinions are about gender roles, about religion, about religion's involvement in the classroom, about the state of politics in America. He is very divisive and holds a lot of extreme opinions,” NHS teacher and teacher’s union president Page Martineau said. “I just do not understand how he passed muster. I do not understand.”

Some students also criticized Dutton’s speech at NHS.

“I didn’t like that it was focused on the men, and he was negatively talking about women,” said a Nantucket High School student who attended Dutton’s speech and asked not to be named. “He said men should be the dominant ones. He was putting women back.”

The student said Dutton’s comments made her “uncomfortable.”

“He told all of the women in the assembly that they needed to be untouchable and be untouched by men,” another student told the Current on condition of anonymity.

But another student who watched Dutton’s speaking event at the high school, Ronald Del Rosario Gomez, told the Current he appreciated the remarks Dutton shared with the student body.

“I think he’s one of the best presenters we’ve had over at our school,” said Del Rosario Gomez, who posed for a photo with Dutton after the event. “I personally don’t think he said anything offensive. I found the points that he shared with my classmates helpful not only for me but any high school student. I don’t know what you mean by (Dutton facing) blowback but I think he was great.”

"Everyone in the audience loved him, he was so cool," NHS student Owen Mansfield said. "I had been thinking about what I’m doing after high school and his speaking made me decide that I waned to join the Coast Guard."

A recording of Dutton’s appearance, which all NHS students were required to attend, could not be immediately obtained. A small clip of his appearance at the Mary P. Walker Auditorium at NHS was posted to his Instagram page: 

NHS parent Heather Stevens Woodbury wrote on a public Facebook post that her daughter and several other students looked Dutton up to follow him on social media after school, “and were met with those offensive video covers calling women evil, etc. They were shocked, [my daughter] was pissed.”

Multiple students who spoke with the Current said that they found Dutton’s Instagram page when it was shared in an NHS student group chat after his speech.

Martineau said that a significant number of teachers have expressed their anger and disappointment to her in the wake of the speech. There was also some backlash on social media, where parents and community members called Dutton’s social media remarks “disgusting,” “horrible,” and “so bad,” saying they were “shocked” and “we can do better.”

“I'm just very confused about it, honestly,” NHS parent Natalie Barrett told the Current. “It makes me incredibly nervous with the current political climate that NPS decided to hire this man.”

“He promotes views about ‘real Christian women’ that center on submission to husbands, and frames the ‘downfall of America’ as removing God from classrooms and teaching Darwinism…We must question the appropriateness of inviting a speaker with these publicly stated positions to address students in a public school,” island resident Rachel Meriwether, who worked in the Nantucket school district as a clinician for over two years, wrote in an email to the Current. “Whether or not those specific views were expressed during the assembly, we live in an age when young people immediately research speakers online. If they were moved by his remarks on confidence and self-worth, they will likely follow him, encounter these beliefs, and—given the school’s imprimatur—reasonably assume that his broader platform is compatible with our community’s values.”

Dutton was ultimately paid $5,000 for his appearance at NHS, of which $2,000 came from the Friends of the Nantucket Public Schools non-profit, and $3,000 from the school's budget itself. According to a minutes document obtained by the Current, Dutton's appearance was briefly discussed at a meeting of Friends of Nantucket Public Schools in August.

“[FONPS] has committed $2,000 per school annually for principals to use at their discretion to bring in speakers who can inspire, educate, and engage the school community,” FONPS board president Kelsea Gray told the Current. “It is important to note that [FONPS] does not participate in the selection or vetting process of this speaker, as the organization’s role is not to override school administration."

Members of the Nantucket School Committee did not return requests for comment, but Nantucket High School principal Mandy Hilemn told the Current that she and her administrative team discovered Dutton over the summer and reached out to him about speaking to students.

"We met as an admin team this summer, our high school admin team, and we were looking for someone who could talk to our students about doing what they needed to be successful and part of the community," Hilemn said. "We were looking for an uplifting, inspiring message for our students. We found him, on his professional web site, and that’s what he spoke to."

Hilemn said she did not review Dutton's Instagram page prior to booking him.

"To be honest with you, that just didn't - it did not rise to the top for me," Hilemn said. "Instagram is not something that I use on a regular basis, and the only time I ever, ever go on Instagram is when one of the teachers says, 'Did you see the pictures that we posted of what the kids did in class today?' So it just wasn't something that was in the forefront for me. I definitely have learned a lesson. I will definitely be checking to see what's out there going forward.

"It was a mistake on my part," Hilemn continued. "I take full responsibility for that, because in no way, shape, or form would I ever want an activity or an event or a speaker to be presenting to our students that in any way might be harmful to even one student, let alone a group of students."

After his speech, Dutton had lunch with a number of NHS students. He posted this photo of himself at NHS with senior Ronald Del Rosario Gomez on his Instagram page:

Martineau praised the school administration’s swift response and urged it to continue those efforts.

“I do not believe that anyone in the school believes in his message, and I thought the superintendent's response, being as swift as it was, I was really happy to see that, because that means that they understand it was a mistake made and it doesn't represent our values,” she said. “I look forward to seeing the follow-up from the district into how this occurred, how it was funded, how that decision was made, and the steps to creating procedures that will prevent it from happening again.”

Prior to his appearance at NHS, Dutton posted videos in which he says “poverty is a choice” and “as men, we need to take responsibility, we need to start owning our households.”

Dutton is also a creationist, stating in one video that “how we were created was through God” and that when the Bible was removed from public school curricula, “they replaced it with Darwinism, evolution, and we just appeared out of nowhere, thin air, and people began to lose their way, people began to get dark.”

“That is appalling,” Martineau said of the video. “This is a public school. There is separation of church and state. We do teach the scientific method. We do subscribe to the theory of evolution…that kind of thinking has no place in our schools.”

“A message that women should submit to men—and that the absence of Christianity in classrooms is what’s wrong with America—does not belong on a public-school stage,” Meriwether added. “I have friends and colleagues in the district whom I respect. My gut—and my professional experience—tell me they do not endorse messages that diminish women or that reject the separation of church and state. But the failure to exercise thorough due diligence before giving access to developing minds was a serious lapse.”