FARGO - A high school senior who was banned from the prom because she violated school smoking rules is going to the dance after all.

Leona "Oni" Fitzpatrick, 18, asked East Central District Judge Wade Webb to overturn a Hillsboro School Board ruling so she could attend the dance Saturday night with other Hillsboro High School students.

Webb granted her request Thursday, saying, "the Hillsboro school policy, as applied here, is arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

Fitzpatrick said outside the courtroom that she plans to attend prom with a group of senior friends.

"It's my senior prom. That's what I wanted," she said. "We're not leaving here without a prom dress."

Hillsboro Superintendent Mike Bitz said there would be no hard feelings.

"We're going to welcome Oni to the prom," Bitz said.

The Hillsboro School Board voted unanimously last month to ban Fitzpatrick from the prom after she was seen smoking off school grounds. She also gave a class speech in which she admitted smoking.

School officials said it was the second time Fitzpatrick had violated a board policy that suspends students from extracurricular activities for using alcohol, tobacco or other drugs. In Hillsboro and some other North Dakota school districts, the prom and other dances are considered extracurricular activities.

Stuart Larson, attorney for the Hillsboro school district, told Webb that the board has the right to make rules, and extracurricular activities are privileges.

"In this case, we have a prom that is a privilege to go to," Larson said. "If you follow the rules you go, if you don't follow the rules you don't go."

DeWayne Johnston, Fitzpatrick's attorney, said the School Board was unreasonable.

"Clearly when they wrote this rule, they were not thinking about this circumstance," Johnston said.

Webb, who was appointed to the Fargo bench last May, said his ruling is a preliminary injunction, limited to the prom request and not intended to decide the merits of the school's extracurricular policy in other cases.

It was a difficult decision, he said. He had prepared opinions both for and against the injunction before Thursday's hearing.

"The action by the court is not meant as any disrespect to the defendants," Webb said.

He noted that Fitzpatrick was 18 years old - old enough to smoke legally - and was not smoking on or near school grounds or at a school event. He also said that if the school policy is later overturned, she could not collect any damage award that would bring back the chance to go to the prom.

Fitzpatrick was suspended from the prom and other activities for 18 weeks because of her second rules violation. She said the first violation was for what she called "guilt by association" when one of her friends was caught with alcohol.

Charles Fitzpatrick, Leona's father, said his daughter does not drink and no longer smokes, after the death of her grandfather from a lung disease. He said she got the word that she could not go to the prom on the same day her grandfather died.

The court challenge was "absolutely" worth it, Charles Fitzpatrick said.

"I knew they didn't have a leg to stand on," he said, referring to the School Board. "It's all about principle."

Hillsboro, with about 1,500 people, is about 40 miles north of Fargo.

"Hopefully other people will stick up for what they think is right," Leona Fitzpatrick said. "If I can take on the School Board, anyone can."