In this undated frame grab provided by WLBT TV, Ceara Sturgis is shown in a proof of her desired yearbook photo. Everyone at Wesson Attendance Center knows Sturgis is gay because she's never tried to hide it. But when Sturgis - an honor student, trumpet player and goalie on the school's soccer team - wanted her senior photograph in a tuxedo used in the 2009-10 yearbook, school officials balked. (WLBT TV/Associated Press)A lesbian high school student in Mississippi who fought with education officials over her wish to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook photograph has found herself left out of the book entirely.
Veronica Rodriguez opened the yearbook last week only to find no reference of her daughter Ceara Sturgis, a lesbian and a graduating senior at Wesson Attendance Center in Wesson, Miss.
"They didn't even put her name in it," Rodriguez told the Jackson Free Press. "I was so furious when she told me about it. Ceara started crying and I told her to suck it up. Is that not pathetic for them to do that? Yet again, they have crapped on her and made her feel alienated."
Back in October 2009, Sturgis and Rodriguez enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union after officials said Sturgis could not submit a photograph of herself in a tuxedo for the yearbook.
The ACLU wrote a letter demanding that the submitted photo be allowed in, but officials with the Copiah County School District refused.
School district officials have referred to prior legal cases in their decision to refuse the photograph.
Rodriguez said she expected the school district to downplay her daughter's presence in the yearbook, but not to erase it entirely.
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