LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — After initially offering pushback on an Eldorado High School student's request to wear cultural regalia at graduation later this month, Channel 13 has learned that school officials have backed off.
Katie Franco, the mother of Eldorado High senior Jocelynne Zepeda, says a school assistant principal emailed her on Wednesday morning to say that Zepeda would be allowed to wear Mexican and Guatamalan cultural regalia pieces with her graduation gown when she walks across the stage at the Orleans Arena on May 24.
That's after the family was advised that Zepeda wouldn't be allowed to wear the attire.
"I got an email that said 'your items have been approved' and that was it," Franco says. "I think they approved my daughter just because they didn't want to hear it anymore, but, like I told my daughter, we do this for everyone."
Franco says there are others with graduating seniors in the Clark County School District who have similar concerns about their child being able to wear cultural or religious symbols with their graduation garb.
The ACLU of Nevada says there shouldn't be any issue at all. That's because lawmakers passed — and Gov. Joe Lombardo signed — a bill last year that's supposed to allow for "public school pupils to wear traditional tribal regalia or recognized objects of religious or cultural significance at school graduation ceremonies."
That was Assembly Bill 73, which was spearheaded by Reuben D'Silva, a Democratic member of the Nevada Assembly and a teacher at Rancho High School.
"This is a bill I take very seriously," D'Silva says. "There's been problems for students throughout the state. The aim of the bill was to give students more freedom for what they can wear at these ceremonies. I'm hearing from students and parents who say they're having issues with the schools themselves. I think the district might have put too much allowance on the individual schools to interpret this, but students have the real right to express themselves."
CONTINUING COVERAGE: In 2022, Rancho High School students protested until CCSD changed the graduation dress code
Jacob Smith, an attorney with the ACLU of Nevada, says the organization could go down the road of litigation regarding the matter if issues continue to persist.
"If they continue to ignore our demands, we'd have to take it to the next step," Smith says. "This is important."
For Zepeda, her right to wear what she wants to wear to honor her family represents something deeply personal. That's partly because her father passed away after a battle with cancer in 2022.
"It's really important to me because it represents my family, most importantly my father," she says. "My grandparents emigrated here from Guatemala. They moved away just for their kids and their grandkids to have a better life and I want to show that all their effort is put to good use."
CCSD released a statement late on Wednesday afternoon, saying they would abide by the law. It said, in part, that "students are permitted to wear traditional tribal regalia or recognized objects of religious or cultural significance...in accordance with (Assembly Bill 73)."
