Constance McMillen sent to ‘fake’ prom?
By now we’ve all heard of Mississippi high school student Constance McMillen, who wasn’t allowed to bring her girlfriend to the school’s prom, due to the fact that they had planned to both wear tuxedos and, oh yeah, they’re lesbians. After taking the school to court, McMillen won the right to attend the prom after all.
Except now, according to a few internet sources, there were two proms, and the one that Constance attended at the Fulton Country Club, was the “fake” one – one which only five other students attended.
Apparently, the second prom – the one that Constance was not invited to, at the, uh, Topelo Furniture Market – was attended by most of the school’s students, and was perhaps endorsed, or even organized, by parents. Can it be true? Or is it just a misunderstanding?
As for the truth of the story, the blog where the claim first arose is citing a source that is apparently “extremely reliable.” For its part, Gawker has been speculative of the story, but said this in an update:
A tipster tracked down one of McMillen’s classmate’s Facebook profiles, and she had lots of nice prom photos uploaded yesterday. So that would fit with the timeline. And there are more than five folks in the photos, so we’re guessing that means they weren’t the group that went to Constance’s prom.
And McMillen herself has apparently already relayed the story to the GLBT magazine, the Advocate. McMillen told the magazine that a “parent-organized prom happened behind her back,” and that:
Last week McMillen asked one of the students organizing the prom for details about the event, and was directed to the country club. “It hurts my feelings,” McMillen says.
Two students with learning difficulties were among the seven people at the country club event, McMillen recalls.
None of that looks good, obviously. And I’m hardly defending the secrecy of the event, if there was any. But considering that the school’s populace was under the impression (that is, until the judge ruled that Constance and her date could go to the private alternative prom event – the one she did attend) that there wasn’t going to be a prom at all, could it perhaps be understandable that an alternative event had been planned?
In fact, the event at the Fulton Country Club was the third venue for the prom, after everyone found out that the first privately owned location had the same rules against same-sex couples as the school did.
Again, there’s no reason that Constance shouldn’t have been invited to the “real” prom, but I think we ought to be careful that we don’t label all the students who attended the “real” prom as being homophobic bigots down to the last one. The rules of social exclusion in high school (or anywhere) are hardly usually based on any kind of rational logic, let alone a specific political agenda. (However, if that is the case, there are some serious problems in Itawamba County, and may I suggest that “graduation” might be both optimistic and premature.)
Further, as one blogger has pointed out already, is it even possible that hundreds of students kept such an event quiet for so long? The irrationality of high school society is one thing, but gossip is another completely. You’re telling me that no text message, Facebook group, MySpace page, or bathroom chitchat mentioned the huge year-end bash/ replacement prom? Not only the prom, but the prom Ellen Degeneres talked about? The prom that was featured in international newspapers? Hmmm…
We’ll see where this goes.
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Actually, if you just do a people search on Facebook for her high school and start clicking on people. On their pages, go back a little bit and you’ll see people mention that they’re excited about prom but don’t mention details on where it’s being held (which makes sense – I can’t imagine anyone posting “OMG, I’m so excited about the REAL prom that’s being held at *insert location here* instead of *location of the fake prom.” And if you go back a little earlier than that, you’ll see that most of the students from the school who have Facebook accounts think that Constance is ruining everything for them because she “can’t follow the rules” and that they think homosexuality is wrong.
The students are actually pretty decent about keeping their own Facebook walls locked down, but then they make these comments on the pages of alumni who haven’t secured their Facebook profiles. It takes a tiny bit of effort to find these comments, but it’s worth it to see how her fellow students view Constance and her efforts.
It appears that most of them attend the same churches. If Constance and her family aren’t members, isn’t it possible that the information was communicated via church or some alternate means?
To sum things up, I blame the adults.
As I was delighted to learn during my bachelor’s of education, a student’s opinions on sex, gender, and sexuality in general are all pretty firmly formed by the time they’re in first or second grade. In the studies I read, the involved teachers were not happy to find out that the only thing their students learned was to hide their bigotry from teachers, rather than changing their views from people who didn’t agree with them.
The long-term solution to all these problems simply to wait. Over time more people will move to big cities and come into contact with ideas from the rest of the world. The short-term solution would be a giant scifi-inspired crèche where all babies were sent after being confiscated from their parents.
Another short-term solution would be legislation against this kind of discrimination.
“rather than changing their views from people who didn’t agree with them” should be cut from my comment, because I don’t even know what I was typing there.
In response to another comment. See in context »Constance had a lot more peer support from her classmates before she went on Ellen and collected her $30 grand scholarship and referred to her entire hometown as “backwards hicks”.
For some reason, the other kids didn’t want to dance with her after that. Go figure.
I feel sorry for Constance though. I think she probably has Histrionic Personality Disorder.
I also feel sorry for the ADHD kids who went to the “fake” prom because I don’t think they played any role in bringing lawsuits on the schol over a dress code.
Back when I was a kid, the schools enforced very strict dress code policies but the kids weren’t all armed with lawyers back then. The ACLU didn’t exist yet.