School Says It's Not Fair to Boys to Have Two Prom Queens
After students nominated Hayley Lack, 16, and her girlfriend as this year's prom king and queen at Foothill High School in Palo Cedro, California, the school principal says a couple made up of two girls can't win, because "it's not fair to the boy gender."
In an email with Cosmopolitan.com, Lack said she and her classmates disagree with the administration's decision to disallow two women to win the traditional titles. "The students and myself believe that there was equal opportunity for both males and females because every senior had the ability to be nominated," she said. "We are asking for anyone, regardless of gender, to be able to win king or queen. With that, they would have equal opportunity."
Students at Foothill High and two other high schools in the same district are fighting back with a "Petition for Equality for Same Sex Couples at Foothill High School," started by Lack and her girlfriend, that Lack estimates has been signed by more than one hundred people at this point. Megan Cowee, a 17-year-old junior at Shasta High School, another school in Foothill's district, started passing the petition around to her classmates and said she's seen nothing but support for the couple. "Even though Foothill is one of our rival schools, we can all come together to support what the students believe is right," Cowee said. "In this case, it's the right for the students to be able to vote for whoever they want their prom king and queen to be no matter the gender. Even though we're young, it doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing."
Lack added that this isn't the first time her school has treated LGBT students in a way she sees as unfair and discriminatory. "[Students] are infuriated because this has happened before with another lesbian couple during homecoming," she said.
Foothill Principal Jim Bartow told Mic that the reason the school won't allow Lack and her girlfriend to be prom king and queen is because students are meant to elect individuals - not couples at a joint item. "They [the girls] are both able to run separately, but we don't nominate as couples," he told Mic. "It's not fair to the boy gender." He clarified that he's not against their "lesbian relationship," he just sees the students' wishes as being unfair to anyone who wants to be king or queen but isn't in a relationship.
But Lack said that her classmates don't feel that way, they don't see having two girls as prom king and queen as being "not fair" to boys at all. "The students and myself believe that there was equal opportunity for both males and females because every senior was had the ability to be nominated," she said. "Even now, if they allowed my girlfriend and I to be nominated for prom king and queen, they would still have an opportunity. There would still be two guys on the ballot for king. It is by popular vote of the student body, if they vote to have two girls for king and queen, then how is that not equal? The boys had an equal opportunity to win."
At the end of the fight, Lack just hopes that raising her voice against the administration, with the assistance of her classmates, makes it so that both boys and girls can be nominated for queen in the future. "We want this to be available for all the students after we go off to college," she said.
You can watch a video of Lack speaking out against her school's decision below.
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