They're facing social pressure and a patriarchal power imbalance. That's why they go along. Maybe they're also too young to know any better. That's why it's good that the school is going to have ethics training.
This draft came about because of the boys' ethical sophistication! They saw that every year, guys were wanting to ask the same girl to the dance, and this was causing a lot of discord. So they came up with a process that would be fair to everyone.
Ethical sophistication? Bah! More like stunning entitlement in a hyper-competitive subculture that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
A draft is the opposite of hyper-competitive. The very design ensures that there will be no competition. The winner and every runner up is chosen at random. And everyone has an equal shot. This may be the most egalitarian event ever held in Newport Beach.
You can't seriously deny that these kids are entitled.
Perhaps, given where they live, but not because of this draft. Even the winner gets nothing more than he would've had anyway: the ability to ask a girl to a high school dance. Doesn't every high schooler feel entitled to that? And the losers of the draft, the guys who choose last, apparently respect the results. That's not entitlement. They're playing by the rules that they set down behind the veil of ignorance.
So you're seriously okay with this? High school boys in sports coats gathering to orchestrate prom dates without the input or consent of the girls?
It would have offended popular sensibilities less if they'd worn t-shirts.
And if it were up to me I'd reform the prom draft. But the core insight is sound. Just add gender parity. The girls should get to do the drafting at homecoming and the guys at prom. Every year it can alternate. Entrenching this new system is progress.
The solution is not to encourage the girls to behave just as badly as the boys. It's like the principal of the school said: "It is not OK for any student to be objectified or judged in any way."
She's all talk. This same principal is perfectly okay with ranking every student in the school based on GPA, cutting kids without enough athletic talent from varsity sports teams, and signing highly variable college recommendations. Then she has the nerve to tell us it's not okay for anyone to be "judged in any way"? Corona Del Mar high school judges every student in many ways. Who is she kidding?
She means with respect to prom! She's talking about the realm of dating, which is totally different. She just wants to go back to traditional rituals. The ones that worked for generations of more innocent kids.
Those traditional rituals are replete with judgments. The usual approach to prom stokes anxiety, sows discord and heated competition among friends and acquaintances, and leaves lots of kids heartbroken when a would be date refuses them, or when no one asks them to come. Critics of the prom draft romanticize away the harsh realities of the system they want to preserve. But what's good about it? Is it not often cruel? Do its participants not value girls largely based on their looks? Has it not spurred boys to one up one another as they proposition would-be dates? Does it not ruthlessly advantage those at the top of the social hierarchy?