Utah school district walks back decision to exclude student who died of cancer from graduation after severe backlash: ‘She was so close’
A Utah school district reversed its decision Wednesday to exclude a student who succumbed to cancer from her high school graduation ceremony — relenting after a firestorm of anger from the community.
Samantha “Mantha” Corey’s siblings will be allowed to walk across the stage in place of their sister, who died from rhabdomyosarcoma just three months before she was set to finish her senior year at American Fork High School.
“This is a milestone that we were hoping with her medical team that she could make it to — after she started relapsing, we were really hoping she could make it through graduation,” her mother, Kimberly Corey, told The Post.
“So for us, it feels like this goal that we all kind of banded together and accomplished together. She was so close. So close.”
The Alpine School District backpedaled six days after it told the grieving mother that it cut her daughter from the ceremony — despite Mantha having completed all the requirements to graduate.
The 18-year-old “fighter” had battled the rare form of cancer, which can grow in any part of the body, since her sophomore year, but was determined to earn her diploma — which her principal solemnly handed to Kimberly Corey when he broke the news on behalf of the district.
Not only would it prohibit Mantha’s name from being read at the podium, but any trace of her would be completely wiped from the 2023-24 yearbook and yearbook video, the grieving mother said.
“Anything that drew attention to her after she passed was not allowed,” Corey said.
The district cited a new policy for the harsh decision, which prevented staff and students from feeling “pressured to participate” in a memorial and that such commemorations should ideally take place “within one week of the death,” officials told KUTV.
That’s when Corey turned to her community for help — and unintentionally unleashed a maelstrom of anger directed at the Alpine School District.
Angry community members turned up at board meetings to demand a reversal and flooded the district’s social media, including one user who blasted the school for “not only causing her family grief but also not allowing her classmates the opportunity to honor her memory.”
The school community even brainstormed a small act of protest: The graduates would wear rubber duckie pins on their caps to honor their fallen classmate, who had a love for the waterfowl.
The mounting pressure seemingly worked: On Wednesday, district officials announced they would make an exception for Mantha.
“Samantha was loved by her classmates, teachers and school staff. She will be recognized at the school’s graduation ceremony Wednesday, May 22 at the Marriott Center in Provo,” the district said in a statement.
“We look forward to celebrating the accomplishment of Samantha and all of our other remarkable students who have achieved so much.”
In her place, Mantha’s brother, Asher, and sister, Zoey, will cross the stage next week, wearing the cap and gown their older sister had dreamed of donning.
The decision reversal means the world to Corey and her family, even if it took significant pressure that she isn’t sure Mantha would have been happy with.
“Even if this wouldn’t have been able to happen where we walk across the stage, she would have just wanted us to take whatever did happen and be positive and make a good outcome of it,” she said.
“I think this is just the icing on the cake that we were able to do this. I don’t think she would want us to fight and yell and get angry. She’s just like a happy, sweet, fly-under-the-radar kind of gal.”
