Another great example, more discrimination...

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ACKSON, Miss. ? Constance McMillen didn't believe her Mississippi school district would really call off her senior prom rather than allow her to show up with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo. On Thursday, a day after the Itawamba County school board did just that, the 18-year-old lesbian high school senior reluctantly returned to campus to some unfriendly looks, she said.

"Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year.'" McMillen said.

The district announced Wednesday it wouldn't host the April 2 prom. The decision came after the American Civil Liberties Union demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it violated students' rights. And the ACLU said the district not letting McMillen wear a tuxedo violated her free expression rights.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford to force the school district to sponsor the prom and allow McMillen to bring whom she chooses and wear what she wants.

District officials didn't returned numerous calls left by The Associated Press seeking comment on Thursday.

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. "I'm just trying to get done what I originally wanted done. Now, we're having to fight just to have a prom."

McMillen said she didn't want to go back to Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates, teachers and school officials.

"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."

A school board statement said it wouldn't host the event in Fulton, "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events" but never mentioned McMillen or her girlfriend, who also is a student at the school.

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, who was preparing to facilitate a discussion about anti-gay bullying at a National Association of Secondary School Principals meeting.

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

"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.

Polis said he was "dismayed" by the school board's action.

"They ruined the prom, not only for this young woman, but for all of the straight kids at the school," he said.

The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held. McMillen said if that happens, she's sure she'll be excluded.

"It's a small town in Mississippi, and it's run by an older generation with money. Most of them are more conservative and they don't agree with it," she said.

Fulton Mayor Paul Walker said he supports the school district's decision and knew of no private efforts to host the prom.

"I think the community as a whole is probably in support of the school district," Walker said of the town of about 4,000.

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.

A couple of students had different reactions to the decision.

Anna Watson, a 17-year-old junior at the high school, was looking forward to the prom, especially since the town's only hotspot is the bowling alley, she said.

"I am a little bummed out about it. I guess it's a decision that had to be made. Either way someone was going to get disappointed ? either Constance was or we were," Watson said. "I don't agree with homosexuality, but I can't change what another person thinks or does."

McKenzie Chaney, 16, said she wasn't planning to attend the prom, but "it's kind of ridiculous that they can't let her wear the tuxedo and it all be over with."

Presgraves said his organization hears about school districts that prohibit same-sex prom dates and gay-straight alliance clubs at schools. He said those kind of policies are detrimental to gay students.

"It sends a message that these students shouldn't be treated the same," Presgraves said.


Lesbian teen in prom flap sues, returns to school - Yahoo! News

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Also found this one on the homepage of TIME, didn't know this was going on in VA.


It's been a turbulent few weeks for gay rights, the Virginia attorney general and college students across the Old Dominion.

First, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell issued an executive order last month that "specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities." Left off the list, notably, was a mention of sexual orientation.

Then five days ago, Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli Jr. sent a letter to public colleges and universities advising them that state law prohibits "a college or university from including 'sexual orientation,' gender identity,' 'gender expression' ... as a protected class within it's non-discrimination policy." (See pictures of the gay-rights movement.)

Cuccinelli's notice sparked a remarkable outcry of gay-rights supporters on college campuses across the state. Administrators, professors and students organized panel discussions and rallies — both in person and online — complaining that Cuccinelli's edit would lead to a rise in hate crimes and a drop in diversity in admitting students and hiring faculty. "His radical actions are putting Virginia at risk of losing both top students and faculty, and discouraging prospective ones," says Jon Blair, CEO of the gay-rights group Equality Virginia.

Following the outcry, on Wednesday afternoon, McDonnell issued an executive directive that clarified his earlier executive order, contradicting Cuccinelli's previous statement and specifically prohibiting discrimination "based on factors such as one's sexual orientation."

The attorney general's response was noncommittal: "I applaud Governor McDonnell for the tone he is setting for the Commonwealth of Virginia. I will remain in contact with the Governor and continue to work with him on issues important to Virginians." Cuccinelli, in his earlier directive, had acted on his own accord, building on the governor's previous executive order, but went too far, says a state political analyst who preferred to remain anonymous. The governor's clarification amounted to "a public spanking of Cuccinelli," says the analyst. (Watch a gay-marriage wedding video.)

The back and forth came after more than 1,500 students and supporters rallied Wednesday at Virginia Commonwealth University to protest Cuccinelli's letter. Waving rainbow flags, chanting "Down With Hate" and wielding signs that read "Jesus Had 2 Dads, Too" and "Homophobia Is A Sin," the animated band assembled near the student union, before 200 later broke away and marched down a main road within blocks of the Virginia State Capitol.

Thousands organized on Facebook to discuss the rulings. One Facebook group, "We Don't Want Discrimination In Our State Universities and Colleges," has more than 5,000 members. Frequent message blasts urged people to phone Cuccinelli's office, send e-mails and write on his Facebook wall. "It's just a huge slap in the face to treat schools that poorly, and lesbians and gays in general," says Seth Kaye, a sophomore computer science major and president of the Queer and Allied Activism group at the University of Virginia. "We are being singled out. People are upset. It's really frustrating." Specific wording protecting gays, he contends, is important to help remind the UVA community to exercise better judgment. "Virginia is supposed to be for lovers!" he exclaimed, referencing an ad campaign by the Virginia Tourism Corporation.

In an interview with TIME, Cuccinelli says his letter was meant to "issue blanket advice" to high-level college administrators, something he felt was needed after he received several inquiries from schools. The letter reaffirmed that "Virginia's public universities are, at all times, subject to the control of the General Assembly," and because wording adopted by General Assembly policies do not specifically name "sexual orientation" as a class protected in non-discrimination, "any college or university that has done so has acted without proper authority."

The letter was seen as a blow to the independence of the state's education institutions, which normally have "a great deal of autonomy," says Kirsten Nelson, spokeswoman for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. "Changes must be made by the General Assembly. Without changes, historically it has been assumed that it is the will of the General Assembly that the institutions retain broad control of their governance." The Council will discuss this issue at their regularly planned meeting next week.

Read more: Virginia Gay-Rights Battle Snares Governor McDonnell - TIME

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JACKSON, Miss. ? A Mississippi school district violated a lesbian student's rights by banning her from bringing her girlfriend to the prom, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, but he stopped short of forcing the district to hold the event.

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson denied an American Civil Liberties Union request for a preliminary injunction that would have forced the Itawamba County school district to sponsor the April 2 prom and allow Constance McMillen to escort her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.

Davidson did say he will hold a trial on the issue later, but he did not set a date and any ruling would likely come too late to force the district to hold the prom when it was originally scheduled.

Davidson's order says the district violated McMillen's constitutional rights by denying her request to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo, and ACLU Mississippi legal director Kristy Bennett called that a victory.

She said Davidson's order allows McMillen to amend her petition within 30 days, meaning she could sue for damages because she couldn't get the prom reinstated.

Davidson said he denied the injunction request because a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as the school prom. He wrote in his ruling that "requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue."

School officials said in court they decided to call off the prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School because McMillen's challenge to the rules had caused disruptions.

Ben Griffith, the school district's attorney, said his clients were pleased with Davidson's ruling.

McMillen first approached school officials about bringing her girlfriend in December, and again in February. Same-sex prom dates had been banned in the past, but she had hoped school officials would grant her request.

"I thought maybe the policy had been in place for a different reason," McMillen testified at a hearing on the ACLU lawsuit. "I wanted to let them know how it made me feel. I felt like I couldn't go to the prom."

She was told two girls couldn't attend the prom together and she wouldn't be allowed to wear a tuxedo, court documents show. The ACLU issued a demand letter earlier this month and the district responded by canceling the event.

District officials said they felt not hosting the prom was the best decision "after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students." Superintendent Teresa McNeece said it was "a no-win situation."

The 715-student high school is located in Fulton, a town of about 4,000 in rural, north Mississippi. The entire county school district has 3,588 students.

McMillen, who lives with her grandmother and has a 3.8 grade point average, has kept her 16-year-old girlfriend out of the spotlight at the request of the girl's parents.

Her case has become a cause celebre since the school district canceled the prom March 10.

She has appeared on the "The Early Show," "The Wanda Sykes Show" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to talk about how she is fighting for tolerance. DeGeneres presented her with a $30,000 college scholarship from Tonic, a digital media company. A Facebook page set up by the ACLU for McMillen has over 400,000 fans.

The teen has said repeatedly that gay students should have the same rights as the their straight counterparts, and while she has been praised on the national scene, her words mean little to some in Fulton.

McMillen said she encountered "hostility" from students who blamed her for the prom's cancellation.

Days after the district announced it would not host the prom, local townsfolk posted signs on the high school reading "What happened to the Bible Belt?" and "Why would we condone this?"

Judge won't force Miss. district to hold prom - Yahoo! News