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Taken from: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20100312/NEWS/100319919/1151


JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district to reinstate the dance it canceled

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom.

"Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year.'" McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who is a fellow student, and wear a tuxedo, which the school said also violated policy.

The district's decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students' rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen's free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.

McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.

"A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom" to cancel it, she said.

McMillen said she didn't want to go back to the high school in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.

"My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I'm still proud of who I am," McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The fact that this will help people later on, that's what's helping me to go on."

The school board statement said it wouldn't host the event "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events" but didn't mention McMillen. District officials didn't return calls seeking comment Thursday.

At least one supporter has offered to help McMillen and her classmates hold an alternate prom.

New Orleans hotel owner Sean Cummings told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson he was so disappointed with the school board's decision he offered to transport the students in buses to the city and host a free prom at one of his properties.

"New Orleans, we're a joyful culture and a creative culture here and, if the school doesn't change its mind, we'd be delighted to offer them a prom in New Orleans," he told the newspaper. "Concluding your high school experience should be a joyful one. One shouldn't conclude that experience with all their friends on a negative note."

Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.

"A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are," said Presgraves.

McMillen says she hopes her fight will make it easier for gay students at other schools facing discrimination.

"I want other kids to know that's it not right for schools to do that," she said on CBS's "The Early Show."

In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from canceling the prom.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he's introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.

"This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it's a prom. It other cases, it's getting beaten up or killed," Polis said.

The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.

Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he's seen the South portrayed as "backwards" on Web sites discussing the issue, "but a lot more people here have biblically based values."

Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It's near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.

Because she wanted to?

Probably because she doesn't feel comfortable in one. If you were all excited about a big event wouldn't you want to pick your own outfit and feel at least somewhat comfortable in it? Would you want to go to a prom in a fluffy pink dress?

Most people announce their date ahead of time. Are you saying everyone else can talk about their date but she should have kept quiet since she is gay?

The issue here is that the policy is wrong, immoral, and discriminating. It needs to be changed, and someone needed to stand up. What if no one ever stood up and tried to change something for the better? We'd still have separate drinking fountains for black people and white people.

Kids are not allowed to bring guns to school because it is a safety issue. Discriminating against gay people is not a safety issue. It's a discrimination issue. They're completely different.

The dress codes are usually just things like, "Make sure your privates are covered, don't wear a bikini, don't wear shirts trying to sell alcohol, etc." They're usually pretty logical. But in this case, we're talking about the school telling a girl that she can't wear an outfit that is covering her, that is not trying to sell drugs or alcohol, and that they would let other students wear. They're saying she can't wear it simply because she is a girl. That's sexism. And that's why it's an issue.

An 18 year old high school student can carry around a rifle in public but not in school. The comparison is just to show that schools have lots of rules. Is it more dangerous for an 18 year old to have a gun in school than outside of school? No. But that's how the rules are. Was the school discriminating? Yes. Were they wrong to do so? Yes, probably so. But from the information I'm hearing she made it worse unnecessarily. I've seen it happen before. When my senior class got our pictures taken it got held up for over half an hour just because a girl who was a lesbian wanted to wear the fake tuxedo thing and they had to have a huge debate over whether it was ok or not. WHY DOES IT MATTER? My gay friends don't all prance around in dresses. It's just stuff like that where people have to make other people suffer because of little things. I'm just saying go with the flow instead of trying to make things complicated. I mean I'm not flamboyant about just how straight I am. And if I wanted to go shirtless for my senior picture or wear a manly flannel shirt they wouldn't let me do that either and I would hold everybody up but they wouldn't call that discrimination. They'd call it me being a troublemaker. You see what I'm saying here? I'm not saying we should oppress homosexuals, I'm just saying people should go with the flow more. Everybody's oppressed in one way or another, I mean I can't have sex on top of a Wal-Mart and then cry oppression when a cop busts me.

You mean the government has a lot of rules? That's a federal law. =_=

I saw this on the news, and I think it's complete bullshit. "Cancelled due to distractions," yeah. Because students really need to focus at a prom. I mean, how will they ever manage to dance, take pictures and sneak in booze with a lesbian couple walking around?!

The school's policy is definitely wrong and EXTREMELY discriminatory. This is comparable to cancelling a prom because an interracial couple wants to attend. Discrimination like that may have happened in the past, but no school would even dream of trying to pull something like that now. Yet somehow it's okay to do that to a same-sex couple.

I'm sick of institutions openly discriminating against homosexuals.

Quick side note on how to help Constance, stolen verbatim from Dan Savage:

"E-mail, call, and fax Itawamba Schools superintendent Teresa McNeece (tmcneece@itawamba.k12.ms.us, phone 662-862-2159 ext. 14, fax 662-862-4713) and Itawamba Agricultural principal Trae Wiygul (twiygul@itawamba.k12.ms.us, 662-862-3104). Then join the Facebook page "Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom." And, finally, make donations to the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition (www.mssafeschools.org), which is organizing an alternate prom that will welcome all students, and make a larger donation to the ACLU LGBT Project (www.tinyurl.com/yl9mvkb).

Call, write, fax, donate. Constance needs to know that there are people all over the world who are on her side. And, more importantly, Itawamba County Schools needs to know that we're not going to let them get away with this. Be respectful, but be relentless. Let's show these bigots what a real distraction looks like. Get 'em."

Wow, Ellen Degeneres gave the girl a $30,000 scholarship.

Mini-update for the curious.

from what I've been hearing, they had a "fake prom" of sorts at the school where, including Constance and her date, there were only seven students, the majority of whom were special ed, while other students had a prom at a secret location organized by parents.