Students at Corona del Mar High School in Southern California are hosting an NFL-style "prom draft," which has reportedly been discouraged by administrators.
According to students, participants are assigned draft numbers randomly, but have the option of spending more money to purchase a more preferred pick in the draft. One student reportedly spent $140 for a top spot.
You read that correctly: Money buys top spots in the draft, giving teens first dibs on their prom date of choice.
As it turns out, this is not the first prom draft at the school, and the draft was even linked to a Twitter account that provided updates to followers. The account for @Cdmprom_insider features an image with the words "prom draft" and is now protected and inactive.
Here's my question: Where is the disciplinary action?
When "prom drafts" are allowed to continue without punishment, it sends the message to all students that this behavior -- objectifying and judging female students, degrading and dehumanizing them through the purchase of draft spots -- is frowned upon, but ultimately acceptable.
In their coverage of the story, the OC Register reports that some parents are condoning the draft, going as far as writing to the paper with explanations that the prom draft isn't meant to rank girls, and is just a mechanism for figuring out prom plans.
Sorry parents, but when your sons and daughters participate in an activity called the "prom draft," they are inherently engaging in a system specifically and explicitly designed to rank young women.
There is no shortage of critiques about the multi-million dollar prom industry, and now we can add "prom drafts" as one more.