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(CNN) -- A school district in Mississippi has agreed to pay a recent high school graduate $35,000 in damages and adopt a policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, according to a statement released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. The settlement comes after the ACLU sued the school district in Fulton, Mississippi, on behalf of Constance McMillen, a lesbian teen who was told by Itawamba Agricultural High School officials she and her girlfriend would be ejected if they attended the school-sponsored prom.

Disappointment as US high school students snub 'lesbian-friendly prom' Senior prom fell far short of the rite of passage Constance McMillen was hoping for when she began a legal battle to challenge a ban on same-sex dates. Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Apr 2010 Constance McMillen Photo: AP The 18-year-old lesbian student said that she was one of only seven students to show up at a private party chaperoned by school officials. She said the rest of her peers went to another private event where she wasn't invited. "It was not the prom I imagined," she said. "It really hurts my...

A lesbian student in Mississippi who sued her school for the right to bring her girlfriend to the prom said she was sent to a fake prom instead. [snip] According to McMillen, the prom she attended was at a country club. She said of the five other students at the country club, two had learning disabilities. "They had the time of their lives," McMillen said. "That's the one good thing that come out of this, [these kids] didn't have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom]."

Constance McMillen, the Mississippi teen suing her high school over a ban on same-sex couples attending the prom, thought the worst might be over when the school agreed to a private dance to be held off school property. But when she and her date arrived at the Fulton Country Club on Friday night, they found only seven other students. "She didn't stay very long because of the sparse attendance," Kristy Bennett, her legal counsel, told msnbc.com. "We've heard there was another event out in the county," said Bennett, legal director for the Mississippi branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- A lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district to reinstate the dance it canceled. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn't host the April 2 prom. "Somebody said, 'Thanks for ruining my senior year,'" McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in...