Prom and yearbook season consternation

We don't write about every story we hear about high school students prevented from going to the prom in the attire they want or with the date they want or students whose pictures or profiles go unpublished in the student yearbook because of expressions of gender or sexuality that schools dislike. But this story about a female student at a Catholic school in San Fransisco caught my attention for a few reasons. We generally assume that everything in San Francisco is great when it comes to expression of gender identity and sexuality. But this female student, who wore a tuxedo for her senior yearbook photo, was told her picture would not appear in the yearbook as is because she did not wear the prescribed drape mandated for female students. And so it appeared that the religious culture of the parochial school was going to trump the culture of the city in which it resides.
But in a heartening moment of activism and solidarity, Jessica Urbina's classmates protested any alterations to her picture and affirmed her choices by wearing neck ties to school last week. It should be noted that Urbina wears male clothes to school daily, seemingly without any reprisal from the administration.
The campaign to keep Urbina in a tux seems to have worked. The school said that the "events have sparked a campus-wide dialogue which will result in a revision of policy." Whether the school would be compelled by federal or state law to change the policy is unclear because we don't know, for example, if the school takes federal dollars which would subject them to Title IX. But no legal entities or advocacy groups have stepped in at this point--and they may not need to.

Yearbook discrimination

Every spring a handful of stories emerge about high school students who want to do things that school districts feel are gender inappropriate: go to prom with a same-sex date, wear attire to prom that is perceived as gender non-conforming, run for homecoming king or queen in a non-biologically matching sex, wear the "feminine" or "masculine" attire for a yearbook photo. Some of these cases invoke Title IX, others do not, or do not make it that far.
The latest of these stories is the censorship of a gay male student's story--one that was solicited by the yearbook staff--in the yearbook.
In Arkansas, Taylor Ellis, a junior at Sheridan High School, wrote one of 7 profiles that would be shared in the school yearbook. He came out a year ago and his profile was (ironically) about how accepted he had been by the community in that time. But the school district feels it is "too personal" and has told the yearbook it will not be allowed to publish any of the 7 profiles. They clearly see that they cannot target Ellis's profile, but that does not mean the decision has been without controversy. Yearbook staffers are upset at the censorship, as are other students, and now the Human Rights Campaign has gotten involved in trying to pressure state officials to intervene.
The school district seems to be holding fast. The school superintendent issued that following statement earlier in the week:

We must make decisions that lead in the proper direction for all of our students and for our community. We must not make decisions based on demands by any special interest group.

The seven profiles will not be published in the yearbook.

 

Not sure who the "special interest group" is here. The yearbook? The students?  Ellis is not standing by himself here. He has the support of the larger community.

The tactic of "punishing everyone" that we seen with schools that cancel all extracurricular student clubs so that they do not have to allow a gay-straight alliance to meet, for example, is not working. If administrators hope that peer pressure will compel LGBT groups and students to skulk away they are 1) not in touch with shifting cultural tides and 2) very misguided and uncompassionate educators.