« Ind. Courts - Star story on Hawkins suspension has really poor headline [Updated] | Main | Ind. Courts - "State Supreme Court rebukes Felts for DWI: Reprimand ends punishment for Circuit judge" »

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Ind. Courts - "Girl sues Lebanon Schools for right to wear tuxedo to prom" [Updated]

So reads the headline to this story by Andy Gammil, on the lengthy front-page of today's Indianapolis Star. The story begins:

A 17-year-old Boone County girl has sued Lebanon Schools after her high school principal told her she could not wear a tuxedo to her prom and would have to wear a dress instead.

The Lebanon High School senior, whose name is not revealed in the lawsuit, is a lesbian and does not wear dresses because she thinks they express a sexual identity that she does not embrace, court filings said.

Her case illustrates a legal battleground over the limits of student expression that has emerged in the past decade. It also raises allegations of discrimination on the basis of her gender.

School attorney Kent Frandsen said the district has had its policy on prom attire for years and hadn't reviewed it because it had never been challenged. The district is exploring whether it must legally allow a girl to wear a tuxedo to the prom.

But, Frandsen said, the district also could conclude that allowing her to do so might be the right thing to do anyway.

The girl's attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has asked a federal court to issue an injunction requiring the school to let her wear the same formal attire to the prom as male students.

In the filing, ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk argued that the district's policy violates the U.S. Constitution.

"From a First Amendment standpoint, wearing a tuxedo makes an affirmative statement about her own sexuality," Falk said. "Students have free-speech rights."

He said the district's policy to allow only boys to wear tuxedos violates the federal Title IX law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in schools.

The girl's lawsuit says the school's regular dress code does not contain any gender-specific requirements and that she and many other girls routinely wear pants to school.

But the school said her only option for the prom was to wear a dress and that only boys could wear tuxedos, the lawsuit said.

Later in the story:
It's not the first time the issue has arisen in Indiana.

In 1999, an Arlington High School senior sued after he was told he could not wear a dress to the prom. A federal judge in that case sided with the student and ordered the school to allow him to wear a dress to the prom.

In 2006, a transgender student in Gary was turned away at the door of West Side High School's prom because the male student was wearing an evening gown. That student, Kevin "K.K." Logan, sued in federal court, and his lawsuit is pending. The lawsuit claims a female student at West Side attended the same prom in a tuxedo.

The Star has included a link to the 6-page lawsuit, filed March 10th in federal court in Indianapolis.

[Updated at 10 AM] Today's story ends with a quote from a student who helped organize the prom:

"What bothers me is that you won't let someone wear something conservative, but you'll let girls go with see-through parts of their outfits or something short," Jaggers said. "A tuxedo's not hurting anybody. Why should it matter?"
This might be a good place for this quote in the Salt Lake Triibune:
Last Sunday on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" conservative pundit and Washington Post columnist George Will said concerning the Republican Party and gays: "Time is going to solve some of these issues, the gay rights issue, for example. For the rising generation of Americans, being gay is like being left-handed; it's boring and uninteresting."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 12, 2009 07:37 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts