Following the momentum of the Constance McMillen case, The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Mississippi will represent another Mississippi teen who will sue her former high school for excluding her from her senior yearbook.
The Wesson Attendance Center in Mississippi did not publish Ceara Sturgis’s name or photograph because she wore a tuxedo in her senior portrait, according to The Clarion Ledger, a Mississippi news source. Female students at Wesson were required to wear a drape in their photograph, which resembles a dress. Sturgis opted for a tuxedo after the drape made her feel uncomfortable.
The yearbook photographer took the student’s photo, but the Wesson principal later told Sturgis she would not be included in her yearbook.
"I went to school with my classmates my whole life, and it hurts that I'm not included in my senior yearbook as part of my graduating class," said Sturgis, in a press statement. "I never thought that my school would punish me just for being who I am."
The ACLU will argue that the school violated Sturgis’s rights to equal protection, under the Fourteenth Amendment, and violated Title IX, by not protecting Sturgis from sex discrimination.
Earlier this year, Mississippi teen Constance McMillen received $35,000 after her school refused to let her bring her girlfriend to prom and told McMillen she could not wear a tuxedo to the event.
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