Constance McMillen Clarion Ledger photo by Matthew Sharpe

Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi cancelled the school prom Wednesday after officials learned that an 18-year-old senior, Constance McMillen, planned to attend the dance with her girlfriend and to wear a tuxedo to the annual event, which had been scheduled for April 2.

In a message to students announcing the cancellation, the school board suggested that a private group should host an independent prom instead, Jacksonville Clarion Ledger reports.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes anyone,” the message concluded.

McMillen told the Clarion Ledger that the board’s action is retaliation.

“That's really messed up,” she said, “because the message they are sending is that if they have to let gay people go to prom that they are not going to have one.”

When school administrators told her last month that she wouldn’t be allowed into the prom with her girlfriend, McMillen contacted American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi which sent a letter to the district asking them to drop objections to same-sex dates. The school board responded with its letter cancelling the prom.

Miss. school cancels prom to keep out lesbian couple; gets sued [contd.]

“A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it’s really retaliation,” McMillen told the Clarion Ledger.

Kristy Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, said in a statement, “Itawamba school officials are trying to turn Constance into the villain who called the whole thing off, and that just isn’t what happened. She’s fighting for everyone to be able to enjoy the prom.”

Today, ACLU filed a lawsuit against the school, asking the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi to reinstate the prom for all students at the school. The suit charges that Itawamba County School District officials are violating McMillen’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression, ACLU says in a statement.

Administrators circulated a memo at school on February 5 that said same-sex dates would not be allowed

Earlier, McMillen had met with the assistant principal and later the superintendent. Both officials told her that she and her girlfriend would not be allowed to arrive together, that she would not be allowed to wear a tuxedo. They warned her that she and her girlfriend might be thrown out if their presence made any other students “uncomfortable”, ACLU recounts in a statement.

“Prom is supposed to be about all students being able to express themselves, have fun, and make memories that will last the rest of their lives,” the ACLU’s Bennett said in the statement. “Constance has a constitutional right to take the person she’s dating to the prom, just like any other student at any other public school.”

Christine Sun, the ACLU’s senior attorney for the ACLU LGBT Project told the Clarion Ledger that the school’s ban on same-sex dates is a violation of McMillen's constitutional rights.

“We believe the law is pretty clear,” Sun said. “The school just can't arbitrarily say you have to be an opposite (sex) date to (go to) the prom.”

McMillen said she believes the district is trying to get around the issue by having a private group hold the dance to limit attendance.

“If they set it up privately they probably aren't going to allow gay people to go, and there is nothing that you can do about it,” she said. “I’m going to have to change schools or something.”

The right-wing law group Liberty Council has offered to give free legal aid to the school district as it challenges the ACLU suit.

“We view this as part of a broader picture,” Liberty Counsel attorney Stephen Crampton told the Clarion Ledger. “It’s not, sadly enough, about one young lady’s desire to bring her date to the prom.”

Crampton told the paper that his group might use the lawsuit to rehabilitate an antisodomy law that is still on the books in Mississippi even though the US Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional and therefore unenforcable.

“The district might be motivated by a desire to prevent the ultimate conduct that is presumptively illegal in this state,” Crampton told the Clarion Ledger.

As of yesterday, the school board hadn’t accepted the offer of legal help from Liberty.