Brody's Notes... ACLU Tells Mississippi School To Let Lesbian Wear Tux In Yearbook Photo

Ceara Sturgis * Photo By the Thaindian News

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Oct 19 | She is an honours student, plays soccer, and by all accounts is a pretty talented trumpet player as well. She also happens to be Lesbian, which is a well established and known fact at her Wesson, Mississippi high school. This time of year is when the senior portrait pictures are taken for the school's yearbook and that is when the troubles broke out. Ceara wanted her senior photograph in a tuxedo used in the 2009-10 yearbook, but the school officials balked. Traditionally, female students dress in drapes and males wear tuxedos. According to her mother Veronica Rodriguez, “The tux is who she is. She wears boy’s clothes. She’s athletic. She’s gay. She’s not feminine.”

Ceara and her mother appealed the school's decision to Assistant Superintendent of the Copiah County School District, Rickey Clopton, who told the pair that "that there was no policy in the student handbook requiring females to wear drapes or dresses," but that he would ultimately defer the decision to the school's principal, Ronald Greer. Greer refused to change his mind telling them that; "it was his 'conviction' that Sturgis wouldn’t appear in the yearbook in a tuxedo," and now the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi has stepped in.

The ACLU of Mississippi sent a letter demanding school officials immediately cease violating her constitutional rights. The school has barred Sturgis from wearing a tuxedo in her senior prom picture, despite the fact that boys are allowed to wear them. Such a requirement for gender-specific clothing is a violation of students' rights to gender equality and self expression.

In its letter to the Copiah County School District, the ACLU-MS reminded district officials that students' right to self expression is protected under the First Amendment of the constitution. Clothing, such as a tuxedo, worn as a statement of lesbian and gay rights, has been upheld by courts to be symbolic speech that is protected by the First Amendment. Schools have an obligation to protect, not extinguish, such speech.
The letter further reminded district officials that the 14th Amendment prohibits public schools from engaging in gender discrimination. Courts have also consistently upheld the First Amendment right of female students to wear tuxedos to senior proms. While school officials may impose a requirement of proper, even formal attire for senior photographs, officials cannot lawfully mandate requirements based on notions that only boys may wear tuxedos and only girls may wear dresses or drapes.
Different treatment based on sex is constitutional only if supported by a significant governmental interest. The ACLU-MS certainly sees no significant governmental interest in barring girls from wearing tuxedos or forcing them to wear dresses/drapes.
The ACLU-MS is demanding the Copiah County School District comply with the law by allowing Ms. Sturgis's photo be included in the student yearbook. The deadline for the photo to be accepted for the yearbook was Sept. 30. But advertisements for the publication are still being taken and the ACLU says it’s giving the school until Oct. 23 to respond before pursuing court action, this according to Kristy L. Bennett, the ACLU’s legal director, from her office in Jackson, Mississippi. (ACLU demand letter can be found here (PDF): http://www.aclu-ms.org/downloads/wesson.pdf)

“You can’t discriminate against somebody because they’re not masculine enough or because they’re not feminine enough. She’s making an expression of her sexual orientation through this picture and that invokes First Amendment protection,” Bennett said.