A freshly pressed tuxedo shirt. A black bowtie and a crisp black tuxedo jacket, topped off by my curly red afro. On that day last fall, I knew I looked good. I felt like myself. I was so excited to take my senior class portrait. It was a rite of passage I’d been looking forward to for a long time.

I think back fondly on the memories I made at Harrison Central High School in Mississippi. I loved playing basketball with the Red Rebelettes, volunteering with the honor societies, or having so much fun with my friends. I take pride in my accomplishments and experiences.

Most of all, I am immensely proud of who I am – a gay woman of color.

I was eager to take my senior portrait for the yearbook and create a keepsake for my friends, family, and high school community to remember me for years to come.

With my school’s approval, my mom and I scheduled my portrait appointment at the local photography studio. When I arrived, the photographer told me that if I wore my tuxedo then my senior portrait would not be included in the yearbook. I was told my school district required girls to wear a drape – a black off-the-shoulder top that mimics the look of a formal gown. Only boys could wear tuxedos.

I was devastated.

Throughout high school I consistently wore traditionally masculine clothing. Wearing masculine clothing is a central part of the way I express my gender and my sexual orientation. I could not believe that based on my sex, I would be forced to either wear a drape, or have my senior portrait excluded from the yearbook.

My mom and I decided that I would not accept this unfair and sexist rule. I held firm and took my senior portrait – a photograph meant to represent me – in my tuxedo.

When my mom contacted Harrison County Superintendent Mitchell King to ask for my portrait to be included in the yearbook, she got an outright rejection. Superintendent King insisted on enforcing the school district’s requirement that girls must wear drapes for their senior portraits.

My mom kept fighting for my rights. She bought a full-page senior ad and included my senior portrait in it. But in late March, a school staff member told my mom that the principal hadn’t approved the use of my portrait in the ad yet.

By this time, I’d attended my senior prom, wearing – you guessed it – a tuxedo. I received nothing but compliments. No one said that my attire violated the dress code. I was utterly confused at this point. What was so wrong about me wearing a tuxedo in my senior portrait?

When I received my yearbook, I discovered that the school district had deleted me from the graduating senior section of the yearbook entirely. Not only did they refuse to use my portrait, they also refused to print my name, academic honors, sports, or activities. They deleted my portrait from the ad my mom paid for in the yearbook. It was as if my time at Harrison Central never happened.

Not being recognized in the yearbook really hurt. When I look at the senior section today, I see all my peers, I see where my name and accomplishments should have been, and yet I am not there. It feels like the school district erased who I am and what I have achieved.

Despite what happened with the yearbook, I was so excited for my graduation ceremony. I was going to graduate with high honors and experience this once-in-a-lifetime event. As the crowd waited for the seniors to walk the stage, the school played a slideshow with portraits of each member of the graduating class. My family eagerly waited to see my portrait, but it never came. The slideshow skipped right past me.

While I have happy memories of celebrating with my family, it still hurts that the school excluded my portrait from the graduation ceremony. But I won’t let the school – or anyone – stop me from choosing to be myself. The school has no right to try to shame me or erase me or my pride. I am looking ahead to brighter times, starting with playing basketball and studying sports management in college.

I am also committed to ensuring that the next student who shows up at the portrait studio is free to choose a tuxedo or a drape for their senior portrait based on who they are, not who the school thinks they should be. That’s why I joined other Harrison County students in fighting back against the School District’s discriminatory actions by filing a Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. No student should be forced to conform to rigid sex stereotypes to take part in high school, let alone at capstone events like the yearbook and graduation.

You only graduate from high school once. Together with the ACLU and the community that supports my authentic self-expression, we won’t let schools silence, exclude, or erase us for taking pride in who we are and daring to be ourselves.

pFirst, Donald Trump and right-wing extremists attacked government trainings on racism and sexism. Then the far right tried to censor classroom instruction on racism and sexism. Next, they banned books about BIPOC and LGBTQ lives. Today, the extreme right’s latest attack is aimed at dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs./p pIn 2023, the far right introduced at least a href=https://www.chronicle.com/article/here-are-the-states-where-lawmakers-are-seeking-to-ban-colleges-dei-efforts?emailConfirmed=trueamp;supportSignUp=trueamp;supportForgotPassword=trueamp;email=lwatson%40aclu.orgamp;success=trueamp;code=successamp;bc_nonce=7dgurpqns0w1d7cyy44vqy65 bills/a to limit DEI in higher education in 25 states and the U.S. Congress. Eight bills became law. If this assault on our constitutional rights feels familiar, that’s because it is. It was last seen in 2020 when Trump-aligned politicians fought to pass unconstitutional laws aimed at censoring student and faculty speech about race, racism, sex and sexism. The ACLU challenged these laws in three states, but today, anti-DEI efforts are the new frontier in the fight to end the erasure of marginalized communities./p pDEI programs recruit and retain BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented faculty and students to repair decades of discriminatory policies and practices that excluded them from higher education. The far right, however, claims that DEI programs universally promote undeserving people who only advance because they a href=https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1742925449465135262check a box/a. Anti-DEI activists like Christopher Rufo consistently frame their attack as a strike against “identity politics,” and have a href=https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1371540368714428416?lang=enweaponized/a the term “DEI#8221; to reference any ideas and policies they disagree with, especially those that address systemic racism or sexism./p pThis attack on DEI is part of a larger a href=https://journals.law.harvard.edu/crcl/wp-content/uploads/sites/80/2023/09/HLC208_Watson.pdfbacklash/a against racial justice efforts that ignited after the 2020 killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. At the time, workplaces, schools, and other institutions announced plans to expand DEI efforts and to incorporate anti-racism principles in their communities. In response, far-right activists, led by Rufo and supported by right-wing think tanks such as The Manhattan Institute, The Claremont Institute, and The Heritage Foundation, went on the offensive./p pLeveraging Fox News and other mainstream media outlets, Rufo and his supporters sought to manufacture hysteria around the inclusion of critical race theory in schools and workplaces. After a 2020 appearance on Fox News where Rufo misrepresented the nature of federal trainings on oppression, white privilege, and intersectionality as indoctrination of critical race theory in our public spaces, Rufo convinced former President Trump to end federal DEI training. Rufo’s goal was to limit discourse, instruction, and research that refuted the false assertion that racism is not real in America – and he succeeded. Just three weeks later, a href=https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/the-trump-administration-is-banning-talk-about-race-and-genderTrump issued Executive Order 13950/a, which banned federal trainings on systemic racism and sexism. This Executive Order served as the template for most of the educational gag orders, or bills introduced to limit instruction on systemic sexism and racism in 40 states, 20 of which are now law./p pThe ACLU has consistently opposed efforts to censor classroom instruction on racism and sexism, including in Florida where some of the most egregious attacks on DEI, critical race theory and inclusive education have been mounted. Following the far right’s “anti-wokeism” playbook, in April 2022, Florida Governor Ron Desantis signed the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which seeks to ban training or instruction on systemic racism and sexism in workplaces, K-12 schools, and higher education. The ACLU, the ACLU of Florida and our co-counsel challenged the law, claiming it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on instructors and students in higher education, and fails to state explicitly and definitely what conduct is punishable. A federal judge has blocked it from being enforced in public universities across the state./p div class=mp-md wp-link div class=wp-link__img-wrapper a href=https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/lessons-learned-from-our-classroom-censorship-win-against-floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-act target=_blank tabindex=-1 img width=1200 height=628 src=https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad.jpg class=attachment-original size-original alt= decoding=async loading=lazy srcset=https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad.jpg 1200w, https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad-768x402.jpg 768w, https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad-400x209.jpg 400w, https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad-600x314.jpg 600w, https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad-800x419.jpg 800w, https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a826b64d446092dcdc923dd2a83f8cad-1000x523.jpg 1000w sizes=(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px / /a /div div class=wp-link__title a href=https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/lessons-learned-from-our-classroom-censorship-win-against-floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-act target=_blank Lessons Learned from Our Classroom Censorship Win Against Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act /a /div div class=wp-link__description a href=https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/lessons-learned-from-our-classroom-censorship-win-against-floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-act target=_blank tabindex=-1 p class=is-size-7-mobile is-size-6-tabletHere’s what the judge’s order could mean for challenges to censorship efforts nationwide./p /a /div div class=wp-link__source p-4 px-6-tablet a href=https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/lessons-learned-from-our-classroom-censorship-win-against-floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-act target=_blank tabindex=-1 p class=is-size-7Source: American Civil Liberties Union/p /a /div /div pInstead of ceasing to censor free speech, the far right pivoted to target DEI programs. For example, Florida passed Senate Bill 266 in April 2023. This law would expand the Stop W.O.K.E. Act’s prohibition on training and instruction on racism and sexism, seeking to eliminate DEI programs and heavily restrict certain college majors related to DEI. Just last month, the Florida State Board of Education moved forward with regulations to limit the use of public funds for DEI efforts in Florida’s 28 state colleges. The State Board also replaced the Principles of Sociology course, which was previously required, with an American History course to avoid “radical woke ideologies.”/p pLed by the same far-right leaders, including Rufo and various think-tanks, these anti-DEI efforts utilize the same methods as the attack on critical race theory. They represent yet another attempt to re-whitewash America’s history of racial subjugation, and to reverse efforts to pursue racial justice—or any progress at all. Anti-DEI rhetoric has been used to a href=https://twitter.com/JDVance1/status/1742925449465135262invalidate/a immunological research supporting the COVID-19 vaccine, conclusions by economists on mass migration, and even the January 6 insurrection. But these false claims are not what DEI is about. By definition equity means levelling the playing field so qualified people from underrepresented backgrounds have a fair chance to succeed. We cannot let a loud fringe movement convince us otherwise./p pIn its attacks on DEI, the far right undermines not only racial justice efforts, but also violates our right to free speech and free association. Today, the ACLU is determined to push back on anti-DEI efforts just as we fought efforts to censor instruction on systemic racism and sexism from schools./p div class=rss-cta__titleWe need you with us to keep fighting/diva href=https://action.aclu.org/give/now class=rss-cta__buttonDonate today/a/div