(Thumbnail Image: Queerty)

"It makes me feel like I'm not important enough, like just because I'm wearing the tux, I can't be in my senior yearbook.  It's like I never even went there.  That's my yearbook, this is my senior year, and I'm not going to be able to be in there because I'm wearing a tux? I don't think it matters what we're wearing." (WLOX)

That's Ceara Sturgis, the
Wesson, Mississippi high school student who was ultimately denied having her senior picture in her school's yearbook because of the tuxedo she was wearing.

The school says the rule for the photos are boys wear tuxes, girls wear drapes, and according to the Jackson Free Press, the district's superintendent says federal courts have supported such dress code policies in the past.

"This exact issue has been litigated in federal court... [The school district's] position is not arbitrary, capricious or unlawful, but is based upon sound educational policy and legal precedent."


On WAPT, a local ABC affiliate of Jackson, residents of Ceara's hometown were split:

Smith: "If that's what she likes, that's cool  it's fine by me.  I don't think they have any right to say she can't wear that, that she has to wear a dress."
 
Jason: "If the kids, and what they're doing don't abide by the rules that are set down for them, then what's this country going to come into if we don't have any structure?"

USA Today reports Ceara's mother says her classmates have been nothing but supportive, and the administration has overstepped.

"The yearbook is not for the parents or the teachers. It's for the students. She's not a troublemaker. She is gay."


Hosts of the show The Young Turks were perplexed as to why Ceara was suddenly getting so much attention from school officials.

Uygur: "This is the most perfectly acceptable thing I've ever seen in my entire life."
 
Kasparian: "Right, and it's not like she decided that this is the one picture that she's going to take looking masculine or whatever. She's been dressing masculine throughout high school and — "
 
Uygur: "Really?"
 
Kasparian: "Yeah, so she doesn't know why the school is all of a sudden having a problem with this one picture."

Finally, a writer for Bitch Magazine points out the irony of Ceara's struggle to be recognized:

"In yet another fantastic display of what happens when ignorance meets a media blitz, the potential yearbook photo of Ceara Sturgis... is now published, many times over, in a wide range of media outlets...  I love that Ceara's picture has gone international, forever preserved by all of us."

So is the school following protocol and enforcing its dress code, or is it just trying to explain away allegations of discrimination?
 
 
Writer: Tracy Pfeiffer

U.S. News

Lesbian Student Left Out of Yearbook

April 30, 2010
(2:28)
A Mississippi school district stands behind its decision to leave one of its students out of the yearbook because she wore a tuxedo for her senior picture.
   
TRANSCRIPT

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