Pregnant Montgomery Student, Banned from Graduation, Walks Anyway

AP Via Al.com ^ | May 18, 2005 | AP

[Diana in Wisconsin]

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A pregnant student at a Roman Catholic High School, told she could not participate in her graduation ceremony, announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.

Alysha Cosby's decision prompted cheers and applause from many of her fellow seniors and dozens of others at St. Jude Educational Institute's Tuesday night ceremony.

But some murmured that her act was in poor taste and that it took away from the ceremony, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

The father of Cosby's child is also a senior at the school and was allowed to participate in graduation. His name was not released.

"I can't believe something like this is happening in 2005. I feel like we have regressed instead of progressed," said her mother, Sheila Cosby. "My daughter has been through a lot and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did."

Alysha Cosby announced her name and walked the stage after the last senior named in the program was called. Her mother and aunt, Debra Blackwell, were escorted out of St. Jude Church by police after Alysha Cosby headed back to her seat.

"I really came to support my classmates. Doing this was really a last-minute thing," Cosby said after her family left the building.

The school's guidance counselor delivered Cosby's degree to her house early Tuesday afternoon, but she still wanted to participate.

"I worked hard throughout high school and I wanted to walk with my class," Cosby said.

Cosby, whose name was not listed on the graduation program, was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of what were described as safety concerns. School officials told her to complete her class work at home.

School policy states that the administration can decide if a student needs to be homeschooled based on medical safety, physiological well-being and social issues.

[streetpreacher]

Right, Grandma will probably be raising that little bundle of joy.

[Saundra Duffy]

There is no excuse for treating this graduate like this while the baby's father got to walk across the stage. I hope she sues.

[Celtic Rose]

Thank you.

[Fatigued Mother]

If that's what Grandma wants to do... then that is Grandma's choice. If Grandma enables the daughter to do the wrong things, then it is obvious why she got into trouble in the first place. Either way, I'm not the one raising the child so what do I care if mother or grandmother raises it? Also, maybe Grandma won't be raising the child but helping with the load. It's called grace and mercy. Mothers show that to their children. I have a GF that was a pregnant teen. Mom and dad helped her get on her feet. She went to school. She is now a very successful paralegal and has a family of her own now. She learned her lesson. If mom and dad hadn't helped, who knows where she would be.

[Fatigued Mother]

"What makes you think she'll do any of those things for her child?"

Hope. I've known pregnant teens that learned the lesson as well as pregnant teens that had not learned the lesson.

[Fatigued Mother]

"I think she should be rewarded for the good decisions she ~did~ make. To stay pregnant, and stay in school. I agree with the poster who says pro-life people should be the last to treat unwed mothers like trash."


I agree. When you punish the wrong and ignore the good... what message does that send?

[Fatigued Mother]

"Nope, it just makes them more responsible. If this girl and her mate had acted as responsibly as 90% of the other teens in America, this would not have happened. With SO MANY free, cheap and readily available means of birth control available these days, the only real excuse these (or any)teens have is, "I'm an irresponsible idiot".

And, of course, we have the parent coming to the rescue, blaming everyone but the child and herself. Notice there was no mention of any man in the family picture. The girl, her mother, and the aunt. The cycle continues..."


It does NOT make them more responsible. Condoms break. I can't even count how many "responsible" married couples that got pregnant using 2 forms of birth control! My own mother being one of them. The only sure form of birth control is abstinence. The ones who have sex before they are married and don't get pregnant aren't more responsible... they are LUCKY. AND... the probable reason there was no mention of a man in the family picture is because THERE AREN'T ANY RESPONSIBLE MEN!!! If there were, then surely one would be in the picture. Instead, the irresponsible man (using the term VERY loosely) leaves the RESPONSIBLE woman to raise the child... which this girl is on her way to doing. Typically though, she will wear the scarlet letter A across her chest while the guy walks away smelling like a rose.

[ExPatInFrance]

You would think that the father of the baby would have volunteered to stay behind with his pregnant girlfriend wouldn't you? I guess chiveraly must be dead.

[ExPatInFrance]

You wrote:
"What a shame that she felt her rights were more important than the rights of all the other students who did not want their special day marred by one who chose to ignore the rules. This is typical of the liberal viewpoint and mantra: Everyone else is unimportant just so I have my way - my rights are paramount - and you have to swallow that or you are not being fair!"

My Reply: Bah Humbug, those other kids did not get their graduation ruined by this girl. Come on they are graduating Seniors, they are not little kindergardeners.

I take my opinion passed down to me from my wise old mother. "Well it is a shame she got pregnant, but at least she didn't abort the baby as so many young girls do. What is done is done, we should try to help her."

It is the school who created the incident, by denying her the right to graduatewith her class. The girl didn't create the circus, it was the creation of the school. How many would have graduated if they all had to take a "Virgin" exam before marching down the aisle? Young people sometimes make stupid mistakes, and we must never forget that they are young. We should try to help the girl not hurt her. The other kids are big enough to know what is going on. They are not toddlers.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Just for the record, that was someone else's comment, not mine. I just posted, popped some corn, sat back and watched the fireworks. ;)

Good points, though. I agree that the school acted stupidly in banning her, but not the father, from the actual graduation ceremony.

We took our 18 year old son out for dinner tonight to celebrate his birthday. He's graduating from H.S. in a few weeks, and of a class of over 300 kids graduating, NOT ONE is knocked up.

But as to how many had abortions during their High School years, I do not know. It's not important in this Blue County that parents be notified of the unimportant fact that they're going to be Grandparents. :(

[LibertarianInExile]

Here is the girl, btw:

And here is another article accompanying it.

BTW, good recap, but I need to add a few things:

1. It was wrong to allow the father of the baby to attend, while not allowing the mother. They are both party to the sin of sex outside of marriage; they should both undertake the consequences.

1a--We do not know who the father is or anything about him other than this heavily biased article claiming he walked when the ill-behaved, pregnant teen did not, and the claim the father walked is likely on the word of an ill-behaved, pregnant teen. We do not know this to be true, and it's doubtful, if only because the article would have named the father were that alleged AND believed true by its author. The pregnant teen's name was used--there is no reason the father's would not have been had any evidence of paternity been credible. This is essentially accepting the word of a liberal's anonymous source, and we know how reliable those are.

2. This is a private school, and they have a right to enforce the rules as they see fit.

2a--The school was almost childishly inconsistent with their application or promulgation. If the rules were that graduates must accept a moral code to graduate, and only now was this made clear, not informing them of this double-secret probation and ducking under a 'safety' claim was stupid. If the rules are clear and stated, then the school should have stood by them. And if the rules are not stated, but the Catholic hierarchy there makes the decision, it should have had the guts to make it instead of the safety cop-out.

Nonetheless, what the school DID say, should have been accepted and enforced by the parents. That it was not remotely accepted, by the parents or the child, is further testimony to the obviously poor parenting this child received.

2. If there are *no* consequences to her actions, then it encourages others to believe that there will be no consequences for them, either.

2a--If the consequence is that her aunt and mother are removed from the church by police, that is not even a slap on the wrist. An administrative solution that would have avoided this mess would have been to completely deny her the right to walk in graduation and not give her a diploma until after the graduation walk. Instead, the school administration proved its incompetence again, gave her license to abuse their weak assertion of school rules, and neglected to announce to the students that the walk of graduation was not the same as the actual graduation, that getting a diploma mailed to them later hinged upon satisfactory behavior at that event as well.

As a result, there will be NO consequence to her for her misbehavior, at least, as evidenced in this article. The proper consequence should have been the same as if a graduating student down a quart of whiskey on stage or ripped up a picture of the Pope as they walked across--expulsion for violation of the school's moral code, and failure to graduate. Again, if there isn't any such code, the administration is at fault. They are 100% at fault for their mixed message; she is 100% at fault for her misbehavior both before and after it. She should suffer for it; the administrator should be REMOVED as unable to inculcate a set of moral values in his/her students. If you cannot hold a hard line with teenagers and be honest about why, you should not be a Catholic high school administrator.

3. We can be supportive of her decision to have the baby without applauding or being accepting of her having sex. This is the silver lining in the cloud, but we dont' have to embrace or celebrate the cloud.

3a--Everyone acts as if disapproval of her walking meant the only solution for the girl would have been an abortion, as if discouraging the casual acceptance of bastardy at a Catholic school is the equivalent of encouraging babykilling. It is not. I disapprove of kids sneaking free bus rides, but if a kid goes and steals a car because he can't ride the bus free, I'm not responsible, and I didn't make him steal that car. That immoral act is his alone. The immorality of the act of abortion falls on that act of the abortionist and the people who do nothing to stop it, not that of the people that condemn abortion, and the improper sexual relations that could lead to it as here they might have. If she was not pregnant and had handed out condoms on stage during graduation instead of running up pregnant afterward, the vitriol here would be pouring out; but put a baby in the equation and suddenly, every post is a damn Afternoon Schoolbreak Special about how wonderful she is for keeping the baby and how accepting we should be, and how it's hypocrisy for pro-lifers to discourage bastardy.

The fact is that the broad societal acceptance of illegitimacy has resulted in it skyrocketing. The acceptance of teenage sex and its result, with no stigma attached for either, has resulted in MORE abortions and even MORE bastardy. It may be better for her to have this baby, and put the baby up for adoption, but 5 will get you 50 there will be no adoption here with parenting like this. This child will beget a bastard who will beget another or abort another. Discouraging bastardy discourages repeated bastardy, not just one child, but a host of them. Those who fail to see that are blinding themselves to the fact that more often than not, early discipline prevents later delinquency.

And by the way, not committing another mortal sin does not absolve you of committing a mortal sin, in the eyes of the Catholic church. If you refrain from fornication, it doesn't mean you get off for aborting your baby. The same should be true here--a sin is a sin, and while the Church has an obligation to accept sinners, granting this girl (and the baby's father, assuming she IS being truthful) the privilege of graduation while non-pregnant girls walk along is tacitly approving the behavior. Should the church approve a boy walking with them when all know he has no clothes under his robe because it discourages him from streaking entirely?

6. If it were me, and I tried to do that: my MOTHER would have tanned my hide all the way across the stage and chewed me a new one for shaming the family in a public display of petulant selfishness; my FATHER would have made me apologize to everyone for being so disrepectful; they both would have left me to find my own way home, and when I got there, my stuff would have been on the front lawn.

---That would never have happened to my sister. My father and mother would simply have kept her home after they found out she was pregnant. She would have been chained to a radiator for the remainder of her pregnancy (maybe not literally, but certainly figuratively), and given up the baby for adoption (or married the father, if he survived the beating my father and I gave him). And had I been the father of a bastard, you can bet I'd have been marrying the mother, and nowhere near a graduation line, either, but at work instead, after I healed my broken tailbone, since my father would have kicked my ass to China.

But neither of those things happened because our parents told us this before we were even old enough to know how pregnancy worked and that we would be meeting Jesus much sooner if we were the cause of one. And we knew that if our parents ever even heard about us screwing around, we'd be grounded until we were too old to breed or shipped off to a nunnery/seminary.

I doubt that the parents of this little darling ever even told her "no," let alone told her that under their roof, she was under their rules. Assuming their rules weren't 'use a condom.'

[USAFJeeper]

As a Catholic School graduate I can definitely affirm that being Catholic is not a prerequisite for most private Catholic schools. If I rememeber correctly we even had a a Jewish lad, he did not have to go to mass etc.

Sure she missed the abstinence class but keeping the baby was better, and the father shouldnt have been allowed to walk, and the school should have let her grad, but....

[CitizenM]

Don't you just love the pose? A feigned refinement (with a smug expression). Then, wearing a low cut, revealing top and the audacity to also be wearing a cross. This picture continues to reveal the defiance on the part of this girl and her mother, who, I would assume, was part of the photo-op set-up.

I can hear the preparation for this picture: "Let's show them what a nice, good girl you really are, dear. Pull your hair back and put it in a bun. Just a small pair of earrings, not those long dangly things you usually wear. Let's see, now, where is my old cross? Here, wear this, it will make people think you are very religious, that is the right message we want. Now sit up straight, fold your hands like a lady. Quick, someone get a Bible. Oh, we don't have one? Well any book will do. Place it on your lap and cover up that tummy just a bit, sweetie. You don't want to appear too pregnant. Now gaze off into the distance, I know it is hard to look directly into the camera. My, doesn't she look virginal and studious? A darling graduation picture. No one would ever think she is anything but a perfect angel. I am so proud of my girl. She just made one little 'mistake' but she is going on for more education and I will watch her baby. We can get plenty of government help, now. She will even get more aid for tuition to college now that she has a dependant. The government (tax payers) will take care of her now. She didn't abort it, don't you think she is just wonderful?"

And the saga begins.....

[LibertarianInExile]

"No one would ever think she is anything but a perfect angel. I am so proud of my girl. She just made one little 'mistake' but she is going on for more education and I will watch her baby. We can get plenty of government help, now. She will even get more aid for tuition to college now that she has a dependant. The government (tax payers) will take care of her now. She didn't abort it, don't you think she is just wonderful?"

Dead on BUMP. And I see the future a year or two from now:

Grandma: "Uh, honey, why didn't you keep out of trouble this time? Did you WANT another kid?"

Alysha: "Why, mom, you take such good care of my little angel that I figured you could handle a few more!"