Male Student Denied Prom Queen Run at Tempe School

When you think of a high school prom, you probably imagine girls in beautiful dresses and guys in their tuxes, but a teenager says his rights were violated when a Tempe school told him he could not run for prom queen.

“It’s just about a perfect fitting dress and everyone says it looks flattering on me,” said 17-year-old McClintock High School student River Flanary.

He is far from a typical teenage boy.

“I jerry-rigged some rope to it so that it’s not strapless and so it’s compliant with the school dress code,” he said.

Flanary wants to be prom queen, and he’s a straight male, so when CBS 5 News asked him why he wanted to run he said, “I guess you could say that I am standing up for those who maybe weren’t bold enough to stand up before and maybe putting that courage in their hearts a little.”

He said he is talking about homosexuals, bi-sexuals or transgender students, but the Tempe School District is being very clear that a prom ballot is a write-in ballot that asks students to write in names of girls for queen and names of boys for king.