A Philadelphia high school graduate is making headlines after she was denied her high school diploma on stage for dancing during her graduation ceremony.
Gripping a bunch of yellow flowers, Hafsah Abdur-Rahman, 18, joyfully danced across the Philadelphia High School for Girls stage during a graduation ceremony on June 9. When Abdur-Rahman approached Girls’ High principal Lisa Mesi, who was holding her diploma, the principal motioned the student to return to her seat and lowered the certificate into a basket beside her.
“I didn’t feel like I broke any of the rules because she didn’t say this prior to the graduation that you can’t do this walking across the stage,” Abdul-Rahman told NBC10. “She just said our families cannot cheer for us. And my family didn’t cheer.”
“It was like, you don’t know who I was graduating for,” Abdul-Rahman stated. “It wasn’t your moment to take. You already graduated. You still getting paid at the end of the day. I’m only doing this once.”
The viral video sparked outrage on social media. A spokesperson for the school district wrote that the district “does not condone the withholding of earned diplomas based on family members cheering for their graduates. We apologize to all the families and graduates who were impacted and are further looking into this matter to avoid it happening in the future.”
In a separate interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Abdul-Rahman told the publication that she was collecting her diploma for herself and her sister, Aisha, who was killed in 2014 by gun violence. She was only 14.
“I was humiliated,” said Abdul-Rahman. “You only get one moment like that, and it was taken away from me.”
