Lesbian fights to take girlfriend to prom in Miss.

State News

March 11, 2010

Associated Press Associated Press Thu Mar 11, 2010, 08:55 AM CST

JACKSON — High school senior Constance McMillen knows the rule: no same-sex dates at the senior prom.

The 18-year-old lesbian student is challenging the Itawamba County school district policy, saying she is worried she’ll end up missing the last major social occasion of her school years.

“The way I look at it is that if I can’t go and be who I am, then I don’t want to go. It kind of feels like they’re asking me to be straight for the prom,” McMillen said.

She has enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union that says the district has refused to let McMillen and her girlfriend arrive as a couple at the April 2 prom. District officials also denied McMillen’s request to wear a tuxedo.

Superintendent Teresa McNeece and Michele Floyd, the school district’s attorney, haven’t returned calls left at their offices by The Associated Press.

The ACLU has given the district until Wednesday to change its policies. Attorneys say McMillen has a constitutional right to have the same privileges as her fellow, straight students, and that the way she dresses falls under her right of free expression.

“The law is clear that school districts can’t treat students differently just because they are uncomfortable with the topic of gay rights or the presence of gay students,” said Christine P. Sun, senior counsel for the national ACLU.

Sun said the ACLU receives up to 10 complaints a year from gay and lesbian students who feel they’ve been discriminated against. The issue is now a topic on Capitol Hill. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., has introduced federal legislation making discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation illegal.

Last October, the ACLU sent a demand letter to the school district in Copiah County after officials refused to let 17-year-old Ceara Sturgis be photographed in a tuxedo for the yearbook. The district stood by its decision and the ACLU said it’s still considering litigation.

A Feb. 5 memo to the Itawamba County high school students laid out the criteria for bringing a date to the prom, and one requirement was that the person must be of the opposite sex.

The ACLU said school officials told McMillen that she and her girlfriend, who is also a student, could be asked to leave the prom if people complained about them being there.

“If we’re slow-dancing or something and it makes somebody uncomfortable, we can get kicked out,” McMillen said. “We do live in the Bible belt. There are a few people who are uncomfortable with (gay relationships).”

McMillen’s school is located in Itawamba County in northern Mississippi, and borders Pontotoc County, where a federal lawsuit ended another school’s practice of student-led intercom prayers and Southern Baptist doctrine Bible classes more than a decade ago.

Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian legal group, has offered free assistance to the school district. The district hasn’t responded to the offer, said Steve Crampton, an attorney with Liberty Counsel. Crampton said his group was contacted by some local residents.

“We have a general interest in protecting a school district’s right to police and regulate dress code and school events, such as proms,” Crampton said. “In all candor, while we know nothing about the complaining student here, we believe this is part of a larger agenda to implement homosexual rights in the schools.”

Sun said if the district doesn’t respond by Wednesday, the ACLU will consider litigation but was hopeful the issue could be resolved informally like a similar case in Alabama.

In November, officials at Tharptown High School in Franklin County, Ala., reversed an earlier decision to bar a lesbian from attending the prom with a female date. After the ACLU issued a demand letter, the decision was reversed, said Gary Smith, superintendent of Franklin County Schools.

“The ACLU told us we were infringing on her rights as a student. In view of that, we had to let her bring her,” Smith said Tuesday.

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