Choose the tuxedo
KELLI DAVIS, Class of 2005
Thank God. Otherwise, what’s next? Girls playing softball, getting jobs, and voting? It’s a slippery slope from shirts with collars to downright anarchy.
Officials at the school have said the picture was pulled because Davis didn’t follow the dress code. Among the items not permitted at Fleming Island High School:
- Sleepwear (i.e. pajamas, robes, bedroom slippers, etc.)
- Apparel with spaghetti straps.
- Shirts without sleeves.
- All pants must be fastened at the top closure and worn at the waist.
- Sweats are not to be worn to school.
- Footwear of some type must be worn at all times. Shoes must have a strap across the back of the heel or the shoe must have a 1" heel.
There is no mention of gender specific clothing or tuxedos. (I do wonder how many revolutions are started by teenagers in sweatpants with flat shoes who are wearing bathrobes, but that’s another discussion altogether.)
I can only hope that Kelli Davis’ tuxedo pants were buttoned at her waist, and that she had sleeves because evidently her grade point average of 4.0 isn’t enough. She has already lived though two years of vicious taunting from classmates about her sexual orientation—who would think the next round of abuse would come from the principal’s office?
When Kelli went to the photo studio with her mother to have her senior picture made, she had only two choices of outfits—either a black drape or a tuxedo top. As reported by Susan Armstrong in Folio Weekly, Kelli watched as a girl with orange spiked hair and ear- and lip-piercings adjusted the drape low between her breasts, barely covering her nipples.
A modest girl, Kelli didn’t want to expose her chest, so she chose the tuxedo top. The principal justified his decision to ban the photograph because Kelli’s picture was not “uniform.” Evidently, lip piercings and breast baring are. Spaghetti straps are verboten at Fleming, but girls are expected to have their picture snapped for time immemorial with a piece of sheeting draped around their chest like they’re just waking up in bed.
When you’re a senior, your picture in the yearbook is critical—through all eternity, this is how your classmates will remember you. If you’re not there, you’re forgotten, or at least that’s how it seems when you’re 18. Kelli’s mother had to buy an ad for $1,000 in the back of the yearbook so Kelli’s picture could appear, over Principal Ward’s continued objection.
Let me be fair. Being a high school principal is one of the toughest jobs around. I have great admiration for people who manage that complexity and I try hard not to second guess their decisions. I know that creating a fair, accurate, and inclusive yearbook is hard. But as much as possible, shouldn’t the yearbook represent everyone at the school as they would like to be remembered?
Everyone at that school has a right to be fully who they are. The adults involved are falling all over themselves to avoid saying the “L” word and pretending that Kelli’s sexual orientation doesn’t have anything to do with their decision. I think it does, given some of their oblique references to it, though the ramifications are much larger than that.
Three years earlier, in Tampa’s Robinson High School, Nikki Youngblood’s photograph in a suit and tie was also banned. Nikki remarked at the time that asking her to wear the drape would be like asking a boy to wear a dress. As reported by Mubarak Dahir, Robinson High’s attorney noted that “if the school had let Ms. Youngblood get away with wearing a coat and tie this year, then the next year, you might have 10 boys dressing as girls and vice versa.”
The absolute horror.
Evidently, that prospect is more shocking to these administrators than graduating seniors who can’t read and write, don’t know enough math to balance a checkbook, and who are doing drugs in the school bathrooms.
This is about more than lesbians in tuxedos—it’s about all kids—their gender identity, roles, and strictures. Nikki Youngblood and Kelli Davis aren’t in their yearbooks because they don’t conform to the outdated gender roles that we still expect kids of all sexual orientations to conform to. They are questioning what’s “appropriate” for men and women in our society—thank goodness. And the administrators of those two schools are also sending “a clear message that gays and lesbians are inappropriate misfits who should simply try to blend in,” says Dahir. “It’s no wonder the administrators at Robinson High and others like it around the country are so nervous and frightened by a 17-year-old girl in a coat and tie,” Dahir notes. “She threatens their entire sense of order in our post-modern world.”
Kelli Davis had searched long and hard to find just the right quote to go under her yearbook photo. It’s by German Nobel Prize-winning writer Hermann Hesse, who died in 1962: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us."
Ironic, isn’t it?
~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~
More immediately, if this issue moves you, let the people at Fleming Island High Schoolknow how you feel about it. Here are email addresses – send a quick note to let them know we’re watching and we’re outraged:
Fleming Island High School
Sam Ward, principal, sward@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Laura Johnson, vice principal, ljohnson@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Dan Finley, Assistant Principal dfinley@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Thomas Pittman, Assistant Principal tpittman@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Deputy Fred Eckert, Youth Resource Officer fgeckert@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Clay County School Board:
Carol Vallencourt CVallencourt@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Carol Studdard CStuddard@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Charles Van Zant, Jr. CEVanZant@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Wayne Bolla wbolla@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
Lisa Graham LGraham@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
David L. Owens dowens@mail.clay.k12.fl.us
If you are involved in any way with a high school, pass along this list of questions suggested by the Southern Poverty Law Center to ensure that yearbooks are fair, accurate, and inclusive:
Yearbook Checkup (from www.tolerance.org)
- Look at the senior portraits. Are all girls and all boys dressed alike? If exceptions are allowed, what reasons can you identify?
- Review photo captions, cartoons and editorial comments. Do any of these elements demean certain groups or reinforce stereotypes? Is the humor harmless, or does it happen at someone’s expense?
- Look closely at advertisements. Do any contain hurtful images, symbols or messages?
- How does the yearbook portray student couples? Does this coverage reflect the social reality at your school?
- How does the yearbook cover events and issues of the past school year? Do you think this coverage is fair or biased? Explain.
- Compare coverage of various sports teams and events. Which sports get the most coverage, and which get the least? What reasons can you offer?
- Compare coverage of athletics and other activities, such as academics, service projects and other interest groups. What patterns do you see?
- Are all the clubs at your school represented in the clubs section? If not, why do you think some are left out?
- Consider the "superlatives" categories and winners. What messages do these honors convey about the culture and values of your school?
- Examine the photographs of students acting goofy or just hanging out. Do the snapshots do a great job, a fair job or a poor job of representing the whole school community? Explain.
- How well does the yearbook staff reflect your school’s cultural and social diversity?
