Last night Tom Freeland, an Oxford, MS, lawyer, who blogs as NMissCommentator, broke a story about a fake prom staged in Itawamba County for Constance McMIllen, who had caused conniptions by telling folks she wanted her girlfriend to be her prom date. Heavy traffic on the post borked Freeland's site earlier today. He has almost put it all back together, but while he finishes the restoration, here's a copy of his original post.
What Happened At Constance McMillen’s Prom
Here’s the news, from a source I view as extremely reliable. The prom the school district promised at the country club in Fulton was a ruse.
Only seven kids, Constance, and her date showed, and at the same time, everyone else held a “real” prom at a secret location out in the county.
This is all after the school district had represented to Judge Davidson that Constance was invited to a parent-sponsored prom to be held at Tupelo Furniture Market. The school represented that Constance was invited in court filings, testimony, and representations by the school district and its lawyers. In reality, Constance had not been invited, but, based on the representations by the district and its counsel, Judge Davidson denied Constance’s request for a preliminary injunction that she could go to the prom.
The school reneged, or possibly didn’t ever intend to follow through on its representations to the court. The parents didn’t want Constance at the prom and didn’t want to be sued (as they told the Clarion Ledger), and so on Tuesday announced the cancellation of the prom.
But what they’d done was secretly relocated it.
Shortly thereafter, the school’s attorney announced (on Wednesday) that “the prom” was to be held at the Fulton Country Club on Friday. But yet only seven kids showed up.
Meanwhile, there’s a rumor that school officials were directly involved in setting up the “fake” prom.
I have several distinct reactions here. First, there’s a cowardice and dishonesty to this that I would hope even folks who don’t accept Constance McMillen’s right to be herself would find reprehensible. Second, at times it’s crossed my mind that there were some folks out there working in school systems who really loved the kind of petty crap that went on in high school and get far too much pleasure out of reliving it (this is not a comment on school professionals generally!). At second hand, I’m sensing that in the folks making the decisions for the school in Itawamba County. Third, at the back of my mind this whole time has been my experience of being a ninth grader when the Fifth Circuit decided they’d had it, and that it was time for complete (rather than token) integration of public education in Mississippi. One outcome was an immediate cancellation of school-sponsored proms, leading in turn to private proms that, in the white community, became sort of junior auxiliaries for the Ole Miss (or the like) greek system, with all the exclusion and related snottiness that could imply.
I do have this recall of Kent Moorhead (to his credit) as president of the student council a year ahead of me at Oxford High, making a large thing out of trying to bring back school sponsored buses to out-of-town football games (I think he won on that one) and school proms (he lost that one). I’d hope for some student leader to join Constance in telling the grownups how to behave, but I’m not holding my breath.
Gawker has picked up on the story: http://gawker.com/5509819/did-a-mississippi-school-stage-a-fake-prom-for-a-le...
Freeland's site: http://nmisscommentor.com/