School Ordered to Readmit Girl Ousted for Modeling Swimsuits

GOLDSBORO, N.C. — A judge Friday ordered a church-run school to readmit a 17-year-old girl expelled two months before graduation for modeling swimsuits in a department store fashion show.

Attorneys for the girl, Machelle Outlaw, said a restraining order was issued by Circuit Judge James Llewellyn as a result of a lawsuit filed on her behalf.

After a meeting Thursday, the Goldsboro Christian School had offered to readmit Outlaw if she would promise to stop modeling swimsuits until after her graduation, but her attorneys said she refused to accept the restriction.

Parents Outraged

Outlaw’s parents turned to the courts after the expulsion, saying they were outraged.

Outlaw said she was taken Wednesday to the office of the Rev. Tom Harper, pastor of Second Baptist Church, which sponsors the school.

“They told me someone reported that I had modeled a bathing suit in a window in the mall,” she said Thursday.

Outlaw said she told Harper that she had not modeled in a window but in a secluded area of the women’s department with other teen-agers.

“Then he asked me if it was a one-piece or a two-piece,” she said. “I told him I had modeled both. We talked for a few minutes and then he told me I would be expelled because I had modeled a bathing suit. . . .

‘Bad Influence’

“He said I was putting a bad influence on the school because I was revealing my body,” Outlaw said.