Reinstatement of Alabama Principal in Prom Flap Ignites Boycott

By Drew Lindsay

Students in an east-central Alabama county boycotted classes and set up alternative schools last week to protest the reinstatement of a high school principal alleged to have called a biracial student a "mistake.''

Hulond Humphries, the principal of Randolph County High School in Wedowee, Ala., for the past 26 years, was back on the job last week after the school board late last month voted 4 to 2 to reject a motion to consider his dismissal.

Mr. Humphries's return April 4 ended his three-week suspension, during which the superintendent of schools investigated allegations that Mr. Humphries said he would ban mixed-raced couples from the school prom and called the prom committee president, the daughter of a black woman and a white man, a "mistake.'' (See Education...