Quote:
HOUSTON—Marche Taylor’s prom night experience wasn’t what you would call “the norm.”
That’s because instead of a night of dancing and hanging out with friends, the Madison High School senior ended up in a confrontation with school officials and escorted out in handcuffs. Officials said her dress was inappropriate for the prom.
“I actually like the dress. Everybody else likes my dress,” Taylor said.
Madison High’s prom took place at the Sugar Land Marriott, but Taylor only got as far as the lobby. When she tried to enter the ballroom, an official stopped her.
She was told her custom-made dress violated the school dress code.
“She shook her head, she was like ‘you are not getting into this prom,’” said Taylor. “We were arguing back and forth because I wanted to know why I can’t get into my prom.”
Even after offering to provide more cover, Taylor was denied access to the final soiree of the school year.
At that point, Taylor said she was furious. She said if she couldn’t get in, she wanted her money back.
Things got so bad that someone called the police. Officers showed up, handcuffed her and escorted her out.
It was not the prom memory Taylor was expecting.
Madison High School Principal Aubrey Todd said the dress was inappropriate and violated the rules.
“It was revealing in such nature it was not appropriate for the prom,” Todd said.
And while she regrets how things turned out, Marche Taylor thinks she had little choice.
“They didn’t give me any options but to go to jail or go home,” she said.
And she still loves her prom dress, even though in the end it will cost her dearly.
Source of story and picture & video of girl in dress
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If the dress code was published/available and she broke that rule, then fair enough that she didn't get in. However:
"Even after offering to provide more cover, Taylor was denied access to the final soiree of the school year."
I think that is an unfair response, considering she'd paid to attend this event. Assuming she meant fulfilling the dress code rather than adding...a hat or something, then I see it as a bit gung-ho to 'punish' her by the full on refusal after her getting it wrong to start with. It's some girl and a dress, not as though she was trying to smuggle a ton of drugs into the party.
That said I think it's easy to interpret this situation in very different ways given the article. It could be imagined as a reasonable girl being aggressively disregarded (as with the boy who was suspended for taking a phone call from his dad...?) or alternatively as an agressive, typical 'gansta' girl with a horrible attitude getting very unreasonable when not given her way. I find it saddening that I imagine the latter to be more likely than the former (the myspace info only propagates said suspicions) especially as one would hope that the school would only resort to the police if she were starting to become threatening or disruptive. Plus as sensationalist as 'cuffs' sound in this context...would the cops have used them if she hadn't put up some resistance...? I don't know. But I would like to think it were justified simply to retain a little faith in the appropriateness of the police's response.