Memphis Principal Daphne Beasley is being accused of posting a list naming the school's teenage gay couples -- without their O.K. -- in an effort to combat public displays of affection.
(ABC News)
A Memphis high school principal, fed up with public displays of affection in the hallways, allegedly displayed a list of couples — including some who are gay — in the school, publicly outing the boys and violating their privacy, according to one of the students involved.
"I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded," Nicholas, one of the young men who claims his sexuality was exposed without his approval by his principal, told ABC News' Memphis affiliate Eyewitness News Everywhere. "I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outted me to my mother!"
"It was actually frightening," Nicholas said of the incident, which occurred in Fall 2007, "to see a list with my name on it where not just other teachers could see but students as well."
Nicholas, an 11th grader at Hollis F. Price Middle College High School in Memphis, was allegedly named, along with his suspected boyfriend, 10th grader Andrew, on a list of couples posted by their principal, Daphne Beasley.
Beasley did not return calls made by ABCNEWS.com but according to a statement from the Memphis school district, while the principal was tired of the hallway hanky-panky, she did nothing wrong in alerting parents to the activity.
"The principal did not list any information other than students' names on her personal call list, and she certainly did not specify the sexual orientation of any student," said Van D. Turner, Jr., associate general counsel of the Memphis City Schools Board of Education, in a statement provided to ABCNEWS.com. "Additionally, the list was never posted publicly anywhere at the school."
According to the statement, this "call list" was used by Beasley to "notify the parents of those children she knew to be involved romantically" after the school received "numerous complaints" of "explicit sexual behavior in public view."
The case has been taken up by the leading civil liberties group in the United States.
"I really couldn't believe that a principal would have done something like this," said Christine Sun, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney handling the case after it was brought to her attention by Nicholas' mother.
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