JACKSON, Miss. — A rural school district that canceled its prom rather than allow a lesbian student to attend with her girlfriend has agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed on her behalf.
The district also agreed to follow a nondiscrimination policy as part of the settlement, though it argues such a policy was already in place.
Constance McMillen, 18, said the victory came at the price of her being shunned in her small hometown of Fulton.
“I knew it was a good cause, but sometimes it really got to me,” she said Tuesday. “I knew it would change things for others in the future and I kept going and I kept pushing.”
The flap started in March, when McMillen challenged the Itawamba County School District’s rules banning prom dates of the same gender and allowing only male students to wear tuxedos. The district responded by canceling its prom, prompting the ACLU to file suit, claiming the teen’s rights had been violated and demanding the prom be reinstated.
U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson refused to make school officials hold the prom, but he said in a March 23 ruling that the district had violated McMillen’s rights.
