An Important Lesson

Shawnda Westly has taken an unpopular stand by insisting on attending Edison High School’s junior-senior prom this Saturday with her girlfriends instead of with a male date. In doing so, she has taught us all an important lesson about personal courage and individual rights.

Shawnda gambled that her school--despite pressure from classmates and parents--would respect the individual’s freedom of choice. And she won, with the help of a level-headed principal.

Like Shawnda, Edison High School Principal Jack Kennedy was more interested in doing right rather than taking the easy way out. Despite a vote by the Student Senate to keep the prom a couples-only affair, Kennedy made the proper decision to open it to all students, escorted or not.

Attending the prom is a special event for students and their dates. It’s just as special to students who may prefer to attend alone because they don’t have a date, or don’t want one. Shawnda so far has been asked to the prom by three boys. But she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend and so prefers to go without a date. Any student should have that choice.

Many students and some school officials would deny that right. They argue that the prom is a “special� event, a “traditional� date night. One school official even suggested that if girls without dates really want to go to the prom, they should ask “a brother or cousin� to take them.

That kind of narrow-minded thinking is off the mark and hopelessly out of date. In fact, in many social situations these days single people appear without escorts. Their preference is accepted, not banned. The high school prom should be no different. Unfortunately, too many high schools still don’t see it that way.

Confronting the prom issue head-on should have been a learning experience for Edison students. The principal’s decision to end the couples-only requirement means that some students who might otherwise have stayed home and missed their prom may now share that memorable experience with their classmates. Now they have the choice. All of those attending the Edison High School prom should be warmly welcomed--especially Shawnda Westly.