Rights

A new third-grader arrives at your school. He is blind. He is autistic. He is developmentally delayed.

How does your school deal with the special needs of this child?

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has declared April Confederate History Month. His original seven-paragraph proclamation was full of paeans to grey-clad heroes but nowhere mentioned the agonies of slavery. This understandably offended African Americans, and McDonnell spent a day or so getting beat up in the media.

Remember Constance McMillen? She’s the lesbian teen in Fulton, Miss., who fought to take her date to the prom and wear a tuxedo. Her case drew national attention after she and the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the Itawamba County School District. The district had banned same-sex prom dates and decreed that only male students could wear tuxedos.

An important date awaits in April, and it’s coming sooner than April 15.

The Census Bureau has designated April 1 as "National Census Day," the date for mailing census forms to bureau offices. Households that don’t get their forms sent off by then will get a visit from a census taker.

By now, most people have heard about Constance McMillen. Last week, her school in Fulton, Miss., cancelled its prom because Constance wanted to bring her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo. The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up Constance’s cause. So have a bunch of celebrities. Today, for instance, Constance will tell her story on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. 

A school district in northern Mississippi has cancelled its high school prom rather than let a lesbian student wearing a tuxedo attend with her girlfriend.

A couple of years ago, an acquaintance who worked at the local college where I was teaching had trouble sending and receiving emails. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why. Then an IT administrator clued her in: Her first name—Gay—triggered the school’s Internet filters. They were set to block any references to homosexuality, gender identity, etc.