Principal says gay student can't wear tuxedo to prom

Claudettia Love, a senior and one of the top students at Carroll High in Monroe, said she was planning on going to the prom with a group of friends, but now they are staying away.

The decision is part of the school's dress code and not anything personal, principal Patrick Taylor told The News-Star.

"Banning her from her prom just because of what she wants to wear -- that's discrimination," he said. "As far as I know there is no Monroe City School Board policy saying what someone has to wear to attend the prom. You can't just go making up policies."

Love's mother, Geraldine Jackson, said Taylor told her faculty members said they wouldn't supervise the April 24 prom if girls wore tuxes. "That's his exact words. `Girls wear dresses and boys wear tuxes, and that's the way it is,"' she said.

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