Legal News

Lesbian Teen's Bias Case Becomes Battle Over Bikini

By Matthew Heller, Editor

A Mississippi school district is arguing that yearbook photos of a lesbian student wearing a bikini top are ?inarguably fatal? to her claims against the district for refusing to allow a portrait of her in a tuxedo to be published in the yearbook.

Ceara Sturgis (second from left) in yearbook photo from Senior Pool Party

Ceara Sturgis has challenged a Copiah County School District policy that requires boys to pose for their senior portraits in a tuxedo and girls to pose for theirs in what she calls ?a scoop-necked 'drape,' a curtain-like garment that causes the female students to look as if they are wearing a dress or blouse.?

?Defendant?s policy ... reflects the impermissible sex stereotype that women must wear 'feminine' clothing,? Sturgis said in a discrimination lawsuit filed in August. ?The policy further reflects the impermissible sex stereotype that it is improper for women to appear in 'masculine' clothing, such as a tuxedo.?

But the district has filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that photos of Sturgis taken at the Senior Pool Party contradict her claims. ?[I]t is now known that, contrary to numerous assertions that she wears exclusively masculine clothes, in fact, Ms. Sturgis chose to wear a bikini to a school function ? the Senior Party,? it said in a brief.

?Indeed,? the district continued, ?it is hard to conceive of an item of clothing more sexualizing and feminine than a bikini.?

Sturgis has responded that the photos also show her ?wearing board shorts, swimwear that traditionally is worn by men? and are ?irrelevant to the issue here: whether the District?s insistence that female students wear drapes in their official senior portraits constitutes impermissible sex discrimination.?

A similar issue recently surfaced when another Mississippi lesbian teenager, Constance McMillen, sued a school district for canceling her prom because she wanted to bring a same-sex date. A judge ordered the Itawamba County School District to pay about $81,000 in attorney fees after finding it had violated her rights.

Sturgis attended the Wesson Attendance Center in Wesson, Miss., graduating last year. ?From ninth grade until she graduated, Ceara consistently wore unisex clothing or 'masculine' clothing to school,? she said in her suit.

For her senior portrait, she tried on the drape but ?The thought of a portrait of her in the 'feminine' clothing as a representation of her senior year embarrassed her, and she began crying.? After the principal denied her request to allow a photo of her in a tuxedo, the yearbook was published without her name or photo in the senior portrait section.

?[T]he District excluded Ceara?s yearbook photo because she did not conform to its conception of 'femininity' and thus based its decision on sex stereotyping, which is an actionable form of sex discrimination,? she says in a brief.

The district argues that Sturgis has no constitutionally protected right to appear on the portrait page of the yearbook in a tuxedo, describing her lawsuit as a ?vain attempt to take this senior portrait page issue out of the realm of a mundane grooming requirement.? It is also brandishing a ?smoking gun? or, at least, a smoking bikini.

Sturgis appears in more than 26 photos in the yearbook, it notes, and of those, many ?are inarguably fatal to her claims, including [f]our pictures of her in a bikini at the Senior Party ... Her high school yearbook is replete with happy photographic memories of a well spent high school career.?

But the bikini photos may just be a ?vain attempt? by the district to deflect attention from the core issue of the case. As Sturgis says,

Just as it would be unlawful to require a female lawyer to wear a mini-skirt in court notwithstanding that she may wear a bikini at the beach, it is unlawful for the District to dictate to girls what it deems gender-appropriate attire in a formal setting.

By Matthew Heller
On Point

Full post as published by On Point News on January 18, 2011 (boomark / email).