News & Commentary

Let me explain. I’m a graduate of Wesson Attendance Center Class of 2010. I loved my high school. I had great friends, I got good grades, I played soccer and was in the band, and I got along well with my teachers. I stayed out of trouble. My high school experience was pretty unremarkable, actually, until it came time for senior year portraits.

By Nsombi Lambright, ACLU of Mississippi Executive Director

Posted by Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Reproductive Freedom Project

By Nancy Kohsin-Kintigh

That’s basically what a high school principal told Ceara Sturgis at the start of her senior year — you’ve got to wear a “drape,” or scoop-necked covering that looks like the top of a dress, in the yearbook photo. Ceara isn’t comfortable in such revealing clothing, and had spent her entire high school career wearing more masculine attire. The photographer took Ceara’s picture in a tuxedo instead of the drape, as she requested, but the principal jettisoned that photo and printed the yearbook without either her photo or her name appearing in the senior portrait section.

The Mississippi Supreme Court refused Sept. 8 to prevent proposed Initiative Measure Number 26 from being placed on the November 2011 ballot. The initiative attempts to redefine the term “person” in the Mississippi Bill of Rights to apply at the moment of fertilization. The court did not rule on the constitutionality of the initiative, but instead said that it would not rule on any proposed measure before the election.

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In December at the ACLU of Mississippi we usually receive a few cards or letters complaining that the ACLU is "anti-Christmas".  Those cards are, unfortunately, usually sent anonymously. Were a return address included, the ACLU-MS could respond with a gentle explanation that, in truth, the ACLU isn't anti-Christmas (or anti anything for that matter), it's pro Constitutional freedom. That includes religious freedom, which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.