No Girls Allowed at “Red Tails” Movie Outing

Girls not invited to see movie about Tuskegee Airmen

About 5,700 fifth-grade boys had the opportunity to watch "Red Tails," a movie about America's inspirational black U.S. airmen who fought in World War II, but the fifth-grade girls were not invited.

The students watched the Tuskegee Airmen movie at the AMC Mesquite 30 theater on Thursday morning.

Dallas Independent School District spokesman Jon Dahlander told the told the Dallas Morning News that World War II is part of the fifth-grade curriculum. Lesson plans were used before and after the movie, he said.

The paper reported the cost of the movie tickets was $32,000 and was funded with Title I federal funds. DISD later told the Morning News that the it spent about $25,000 on transportation and an unknown amount on substitute teachers for the girls at school.

The cost of the movie may not be the reason why the field trip was questioned, the fact  no girls were allowed to attend the screening could be the bigger issue.

The district said it was a matter of space. "There is only so much available space at the movie theater, so the decision was made for boys to attend the movie," Dahlander told the paper.

According to the Morning News, the fifth-grade girls stayed at school and were given the option to watch "Akeelah and the Bee."

That movie is about Akeelah Anderson, a black girl from south Los Angeles who took part in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

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