NEW ORLEANS — A judge granted a preliminary injunction to allow disciplined Sophie B. Wright students to participate in the school’s graduation, but the ruling came too late for the students to actually walk at Monday morning’s graduation.
The graduation was held at 9 a.m. at Xavier University. The injunction granted by Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Christopher Bruno came after the ceremony had begun Monday, according to Victor Jones, a senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The students had been suspended and told they could not participate in high-profile graduating senior events like the school’s prom and graduation ceremony, after a Senior Day prank that included water guns and balloons and which the school said resulted in a couple of injuries. School officials also said that the students had been warned in advance against participating in such activities.
Some of the parents talked to by Eyewitness News said that they thought the students owed the principal an apology, but that the punishment was too harsh.
Monday’s preliminary injunction was the latest effort to allow the students to walk across the stage at graduation.
Attorney Victor Jones said that despite the timing, the ruling was a victory.
“The court’s decision is a welcome reprieve from the kinds of widespread and arbitrary school discipline practices that violate students’ due process rights. Even though the order was issued too late to let these brave students walk this morning, we could not sit by and not try while the students and their families missed a once-in-a-lifetime event without having been given the opportunity to explain what happened, and ignoring the cost of that punishment to their lives and futures.