What my family gets up to when they aren't just being great people for themselves

[womzilla]

Had lunch with my sister today. Her wife is temporarily relocated to New York for work reasons, and Terry is visiting. Terry sister told me about the case that her wife, my sister-in-law, is working on.

And then I read about it in Eschaton an hour later. And USA Today. And the Washington Post. And....

ACLU files suit against Miss. school for canceling prom
JACKSON, Miss.--The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi today filed suit in federal court against the Itawamba County School System, which canceled the prom for one of its high schools when a student challenged a ban on bringing same-sex dates.

The federal suit asks the court to force the school board to reinstate the prom and alleges that district officials have violated the First Amendment rights of Constance McMillen, a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School.

"It's shameful and cowardly of the school district to have canceled the prom and to try to blame Constance, who's only standing up for herself," said Christine Sun, an attorney with the ACLU national LGBT Project. "We will fight tooth and nail for the prom to be reinstated for all students."

My analysis of the case: It appears that there's a lot of case law which says pretty clearly that if you're a government entity (like a school) and you create a forum for expression (like a public dance), and you violate someone's First Amendment rights in that forum, you can't just close the forum when they complain. So, you know, the school has pretty much boned itself forward and back.

My analysis of my family: Yaaaay!

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Closing the prom is pretty much the tactic that was adopted during "Massive Resistance" (as it was called) to desegregation in the 60s. Forced to integrate your school system? No problem, just close the schools and let the white students go to private schools that will conveniently crop up and look just like the old white school system. One Virginia county had no public schools for about five years.

I read previous articles on this and noted the number of people blaming the student for the loss of the prom. This is the "the devil made me do it" line of defense.

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

That'd be Prince Edward County, whose behavior during Massive Resistance is not exactly the proudest moment in my current state's history.

But more importantly: Yay, SILzilla!

[ferret-herder.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this place, if forced to reopen it, will probably end up with a similar situation to some schools with issues with racism - many times, white kids will abandon the official prom and hold their own offsite, or the black kids may end up making their own if they feel so unwelcome.

Frankly, I'm surprised a place like that even allows dancing.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

How cool that your sister-in-law is working on this! It's been all over the net today, of course. Canceling the prom for this reason is bad enough; doing it in such a way that the lesbian student is sure to face retaliation and ill-feeling from classmates is even sleazier.

[docbrite.livejournal.com]

I've been following this case; how cool that C is working on it! Also (*waving*) HIIIIIIIIII, TERRY!!!!!!!!!

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

I've been reading about this case, Dan Savage has written a lot about it. How fantastic that your sister-in-law is involved!

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Big ups to your family, who I'm now totally going to pretend I know. Go Christine, go!