As we roll into Homecoming season, that means it’s time for the first school dance of the year. While some schools celebrate their queer students and involve them in the festivities, not all are so enlightened. Even in the last couple of years, students have been expelled for bringing a trans prom date, and turned away for either wearing a dress or not wearing a dress. Should any of these students decide to sue‚ you don’t have to be a lawyer to know they’ll likely be citing one landmark case in particular: Fricke v. Lynch.

Aaron Fricke and Paul Guilbert both went to Cumberland High School in Cumberland, Rhode Island, just north of Providence. The two were fast friends, and their friendship soon blossomed into something more. In April 1979, Guilbert asked Fricke to his school’s prom, which would be the first time a same-sex couple had attended the school dance together.

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In his autobiography, Reflections of a Rock Lobster, Fricke wrote that he declined Guilbert’s invitation, worrying that it would “be too big a step, too soon, to be his date.” Undeterred, Guilbert asked Ed Miskevich, a 22-year-old senior at Brown University and the leader of Brown’s gay youth group, as his prom date.

But when Guilbert asked principal Richard Lynch for permission, he was denied. Lynch feared not only “a disruption at the dance” but possible “physical harm” to Guilbert, according to court documents. Lynch’s suspicions, sadly, weren’t wrong: in the aftermath, students spat at and slapped Guilbert, leading Lynch to provide an adult escort as Guilbert walked the halls between classes. 

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“They were yelling and screaming, practically the whole student body. Every class I went to, people stopped to look at me,” Guilbert told the press at the time. “It was kind of sick.”

One classmate added that if Guilbert were allowed to take Miskevich to prom, it would “make the junior class look bad. It will be known as the ‘Gay’ prom class.”

Fricke writes that though Guilbert wanted to fight, he was only 17 at the time and would need his parents’ help. Unfortunately, Guilbert’s parents had rejected him after he came out and even tried to avoid him around the house. They had no interest in helping his legal case. Though Guilbert’s story got national news coverage, legally, it ended there. 

Guilbert received harassing phone calls, and his parents ultimately kicked him out of the house, leading him to move to New York.

The following year, though he was no longer attending Cumberland High, Guilbert was still on Lynch’s mind. In a 1979-1980 speech to students, Lynch told the assembled students that the upcoming school year would be a good one, since it wouldn’t have “the problem” of the previous one, Fricke wrote.

“After this demagogic speech, the students went wild. Most of them would have forgotten their earlier feelings about Paul, but Mr. Lynch was not satisfied with that. He wanted the students to believe that there were no more homosexuals in the school, that we were somehow spartan and pure,” Fricke wrote. “To him, Paul was the problem.”

Lynch’s speech energized Fricke to fight the homophobia he saw all around him. Inspired by his admiration for Guilbert’s being out—Guilbert famously always replied “That’s right, honey!” when other students shouted slurs at him—he decided he was going to fight back. 

But Fricke worried about coming out to his parents. Though he was out at school, he wrote of his fear that the abuse he suffered would give his mother the wrong idea about gay life. While attending classes, he was spat on and abused by fellow students while teachers and administrators looked the other way and cracked homophobic jokes. 

By April 1980, Fricke had had enough. After Lynch again referred to “the problem” from last year’s prom, Fricke decided to pick up Guilbert’s mantle. But he knew that fighting would result in being outed publicly—including to his parents. Fricke didn’t know how his parents would react, but he knew that as an 18-year-old, it didn’t matter legally if they supported him in his upcoming fight or not. He decided to come out to them.

“My mother replied, ‘I’m so glad you were finally able to be honest with me.’ She had long suspected. My father had not; when I told him he broke down and cried. Yet they both loved me unconditionally. When I explained why I wanted to go to the prom, they were supportive. I was my own man, they each said, and I would have to make my own decisions,” Fricke wrote.

Buoyed by the parental support that Guilbert never had, Fricke asked him to the prom, and Guilbert accepted. And as expected, when he asked Lynch for permission, he was denied. Fricke reached out to the National Gay Task Force in Providence, Rhode Island, which put him in touch with lawyer John Gaffney. Gaffney helped Fricke file suit against Lynch and the school.

Gaffney and Fricke accused Lynch of violating Fricke’s freedom of speech. Knowing it would take some time for the case to wind its way through the courts, Fricke also asked for a preliminary injunction so he and Guilbert could go to the dance—a request that was granted..

Judge Raymond James Pettine agreed with Lynch that there may be threats of violence against Fricke and Guilbert—and indeed, Fricke was punched by a student the day after filing suit, requiring five stitches under his eye. But to use those threats of violence as a reason to ban the couple from the prom was basically giving in to a “heckler’s veto,” an unconstitutional infringement on the First Amendment, Pettine ruled. 

“The Court appreciates that controlling high school students is no easy task. It is, of course, impossible to guarantee that no harm will occur, no matter what measures are taken. But only one student so far has attempted to harm Aaron, and no evidence was introduced of other threats… Appropriate security measures coupled with a firm, clearly communicated attitude by the administration that any disturbance will not be tolerated appear to be a realistic, and less restrictive, alternative to prohibiting Aaron from attending the dance with the date of his choice,” Judge Pettine wrote.

Fricke and Guilbert were able to attend the prom on May 31. Lynch hired additional policemen to provide security for the prom and warned “very stern measures would be taken” if anyone interfered, according to a contemporaneous AP report. While there was some taunting from students as Fricke and Guilbert danced, there was no further trouble, the AP reported. 

Since then, Fricke has been repeatedly cited in similar lawsuits, including a 2010 suit when Constance McMillen wanted to attend prom at a Mississippi-area school with her girlfriend. In response, the school cancelled the prom, leading to harassment against McMillen. Her story was later adapted into the stage musical and film The Prom. 

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