Mississippi town segregates prom

[Vernon Windsor]

Gay students over here, straight ones over there in Fulton, Miss. Remember Constance Miller, who wanted to wear a tux and take her girlfriend
to the prom? After first canceling the prom, her school ended up having
one. Constance showed up on Friday night and found just a half dozen of
her classmates.

Where was everyone else? At the real prom, in another community. Gross, OK? Gross, and shameful, and way too recognizable for us natives.

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Constance McMillen did attend her school’s prom Friday night, although many of her classmates partied at an alternate event in Itawamba County.

McMillen
went to the Itawamba Agricultural High School prom at the Fulton
Country Club, but she was one of the few to attend the event. McMillen
said she arrived at the dance an hour-and-a-half after it began and
stayed for about 30 minutes. She said she saw six other students and
several school officials while she was there.

Meanwhile, many
more Itawamba AHS students went to an event held at the community center
in Evergreen, another community in Itawamba County. McMillen said she
knew about that event but that when she asked another student if she was
invited, the student told her, “the prom is at the country club.”

“I
took that as no,” McMillen said. “If I wasn’t wanted there, I wasn’t
going to go.”

The Itawamba AHS prom came under scrutiny after the
ACLU sent a letter to the Itawamba County School District demanding it
change the school rule forbidding same-sex dates at the Itawamba AHS
prom. The letter said the district must allow McMillen to attend the
dance with her girlfriend and to wear a tuxedo or it could face legal
action.

Eight days later, the district announced it would not
hold a prom, sparking an international story that landed McMillen on the
CBS Early Show, The Joy Behar Show and The Ellen Degeneres Show, among
others.

At a hearing on a preliminary injunction filed by the
ACLU, Senior U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson ruled that the
district had violated McMillen’s First Amendment rights but that it
shouldn’t be forced to sponsor a prom since a group of parents had
already agreed to hold an event that would be “open to all IAHS
students.”

Last Monday night, those parents announced they would
no longer host that prom. On Tuesday afternoon, school district attorney
Michele Floyd said a private prom would be held at the Fulton Country
Club, although the exact sponsorship of that event remains a mystery.

Kristy
Bennett, legal director for the ACLU of Mississippi, said her
organization was still gathering details about what happened Friday
night to determine whether they would ask Davidson for sanctions.

At
the least, Bennett said the details about Friday’s prom would be used
in the organization’s damages suit against the district, which is still
being developed.

“We are disappointed at the sparse attendance,
and we’re looking further into the situation,” Bennett said.

“Whatever
we find will be brought to the court’s attention, whether it is in the
damages trial, or whatever. There will still be a trial on the merits.
The case didn’t end in the preliminary hearing.”

[Vernon Windsor]

I wouldn't paint the whole region with the idiocy a few, or even some people. Still, I think it's sad.

[brujo]

The Confederate South? LOL. You got an old map.

[Madhatterat60]

As a former high school teacher who 'chaperoned' many of these, this isn't such a bad idea. In ANY high school, and I don't care how progressive...that kind of mixing is an invitation to a blood bath.

[Boothby171]

I'm just so disgusted that a town would plan a "secret prom." I find this highly offensive, to the point where I can barely picture it in my head.

When will people learn that homosexuals are not some horrible threat to heterosexuals (and, in fact, the opposite has been shown to be true, over and over again)?

[Vernon Windsor]

In truth, it is likely that some of the fathers or mothers of the homophobes were gay themselves. Getting married and having kids is good cover in parts of the country were "coming out" could get you killed.