CRANSTON, R.I. -- A "father-daughter" dance for Cranston students will be held Thursday night -- a temporary reprieve for students caught in a legal spat over whether such events violate state law on gender discrimination.
The dance, sponsored by radio station Cat Country 98.1, will be off school grounds -- at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet -- and is open to boys and girls in grades K through 6 accompanied by "any adult ... in the student's life."
The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union challenged a similar event on school grounds in May on behalf of a Cranston single mother whose elementary school-age daughter said she felt ostracized.
Federal law prohibits gender-based discrimination but allows "mother-daughter" and "father-son" activities as long as "reasonable comparable activities" are offered to students of the other sex.
State law doesn't provide such exemption. The Cranston School Committee has asked state legislators to change state law to include a similar exemption as federal Title IX.