We’re so confused why this teen girl was turned away at prom
Prom is a significant event for just about everyone who goes to high school, even if they don’t like to admit it. But at Carencro High School in Louisiana, Amari Williams was a student who was denied entrance to prom and was thus robbed of that special experience to close out her senior year of high school. When she arrived to the front door, the principal of her school insisted that her prom dress didn’t meet the standards laid out by school administration.
Not only had Amari spent all day getting ready and taking pictures, but she had actually gone to that same principal well before prom night and received approval for the dress she was wearing that night.
We are so confused rn. And upset for Amari.
This has to be the most bizarre prom story we’ve ever heard. Amari saved up all her money and had her dress custom made for her senior prom — and it looked absolutely stunning. She was in complete disbelief when the principal refused to let her into prom.
"Hearing from Ms. Qualey, the person who approved it, hearing her say I can’t get in, that was heartbreaking because you approved it but now you’re saying something totally different," Amari told KLFY News.
She called her mom, who came to the prom right away with scissors and pins, “willing to do whatever needed to be done” in order to “let her enjoy her night.” Still, the principal wouldn’t judge, and Amari and her mother had to go home.
The principal told KLFY she didn’t ever remember approving that dress. Ugh. KLFY spoke with Joe Craig, Lafayette Parish School System Chief Administrative Officer, who insisted that Amari’s dress wasn’t in conjunction with the code.
“The length has to be all the way to the ground, all the way around; kind of easy to remember. In this case, the dress was not all the way to the ground and on that basis, it wasn’t considered a formal dress,” he said.
If you watch the KLFY video, you can clearly see Craig’s disdain and sarcasm when he said the phrase “kind of easy to remember.” We feel like it’s important to point out that Craig is white man and Amari is a young black woman.
We wish there were some kind of justice we could offer to Amari, because her dress was beautiful and she deserved to enjoy her prom like every other student at her school. We hope she at least gets the chance to wear that beautiful dress to another occasion.
