(Photo: MARGARET CROFT/THE NEWS-STAR)
An openly gay student and top academic scholar at a Louisiana high school won’t attend the prom this year because the school won’t allow her to wear a tuxedo.
The school says it’s simply a dress code, but Carroll High School senior Claudetteia Love said the prohibition is more about her sexual orientation than her fashion choices.
Friday, she sat quietly crying in her living room as she talked about missing one of the signature events of her senior year. The prom is April 24.
“I told my mom, ‘They’re using me. They put me in all these honors and advanced placement classes so I can take all of these tests and get good grades and better the school, but when it’s time for me to celebrate the fact that I’ve accomplished what I need to accomplish and I’m about to graduate, they don’t want to let me do it, the way I want to,’ ” she said.
Last year, Love was one of a group of students presented in a Monroe City School Board meeting as part of the school’s high-achieving medical magnet program. In a school that has a failing school performance score, Love is one of the academic superstars. She will represent the school at the annual Scholars’ Banquet, an event for the top students in Ouachita Parish.
Geraldine Jackson, Love’s mom, said she talked to Principal Patrick Taylor about the school’s rule of no tuxes for girls.
“He said that the faculty that is working the prom told him they weren’t going to work the prom if (girls) were going to wear tuxes,” she said. “That’s his exact words. ‘Girls wear dresses and boys wear tuxes, and that’s the way it is.’ ”
Source: USA Today | Barbara Leader, The (Monroe, La.) News-Star
Wow, That is total crap, Heck, Yves Saint Laurent came out with tuxedo’s for women back in the 60’s, And I have seen pictures back as early as the 20’s of women wearing tuxedo’s, Rhianna wore one not too long ago and she looked amazing, Ann Hathaway, Emma Watson, Angelina Jolie, Jane Fonda all wore tuxedo’s and they all looked sexy and amazing as hell. JcPenney even makes them now (a more affordable version even than Yves Saint Laurent) I really see nothing wrong with this. Just because the woman is lesbian, does not mean she should be limited to wearing a dress, I am not a lesbian and i rarely wear a dress. Leave the girl alone, let her wear what the hell she wants!!!!