Editor's Note: The ACLU just filed a lawsuit against the schoo on this student's behalf.

So I was looking at Yahoo's daily featured articles as I normally do when I'm at work and I came across an article called, "Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request." The first thing that I thought to myself was, are you serious? It turns out an entire Mississippi school district will not have a prom in any of their schools simply because a lesbian student wanted to dress in a tuxedo and bring her girlfriend to prom. Of course, the school board did not admit that this was the reason why they decided to cancel the prom. I am guessing that the school board doesn't what to be viewed as discriminating against people whose sexual orientation is anything other than heterosexual, so they decide to not only cancel the prom at the particular school the female student attends but all of the proms in the district. Perhaps, the school board is cancelling the prom at all of the schools as a punishment and warning for any students who ever think of bringing a date of the opposite sex. But, according to the author, the school district actually has a policy that requires senior prom dates to be of the opposite sex. What upsets me is how Mississippi tries to uphold this image of old America in their state, where gays aren't accepted and segregation is o.k., and instead of dealing with the issues and solving them the school board gets rid of whatever is causing the "problem."
 
This is not the first time Mississippi was put on blast about their discriminatory actions. In 2009, Morgan Freeman paid for the first integrated prom held in his home town in Mississippi. However, the first time that I heard of something like this was in Georgia when it was discovered there were still segregated proms there. When I heard that I was flabbergasted: What -- this is still happening in the 21st century? Turns out the prom, in Georgia, are not held or funded by the schools- this is what I mean by the schools getting rid of whatever is causing the problem, and not dealing with the problem. Instead, the proms are funded by the parents, and "private citizens" (some of which may be school faculty). So it seemed like a flashback to this particular story when district officials said, "It is our hope that private citizens will organize an event for the juniors and seniors" regarding the lesbian date request. What I didn't understand with the segregated prom was some of the students had interracial relationships, that was o.k., but they could not go to prom together. One of the white students stated, her best friend was black and she wasn't able to spend her prom memories with her best friend simply because her friend was another race. A black student found it ridiculous that black and white students were allowed to be in the same classes, graduate together, be together in every sense of the words, but not be together at prom. Although America has come a long way from slavery and lynching, we have a long way to go. I hope that we as youth can make that change in our generation.

Visit http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lesbian_prom_date to read the article "Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request."

Visit www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24prom-t.html to read the article on the segregated prom in Georgia and listen to an audio of the students and parents and what their thoughts are on the issue.