PORTLAND, Tenn. -- A senior at Portland High School won’t be able to get her diploma at graduation.

Video: Piercings Keep Senior From Graduation Ceremony

Samantha Elliot said she is not being allowed to walk across the stage because of her face piercings.

Graduation is set for Friday, May 18, but Elliot will not be walking because of a dress code violation.

“I don’t think it’s right. I just want to walk with my class. I mean, I’ve worked for this, and I think I deserve it,” she said.

The dress code states that piercings aren’t allowed.

“From the time she was five, a mother looks forward to this day,” said Samantha Elliot’s mother Pamela Elliot.

She said there is a double standard because she has seen other students with piercings and that Samantha had her piercings all year, and nothing has been said.

“Why didn’t you tell me this five months ago? I would have taken her and had these things taken out,” Pamela Elliot said.

“Walking the line at graduation is a privilege, it’s not a right,” said Sumner County Schools Spokesman Steve Doremus.

He said the system won’t budge.

“I know they were brought to the principal’s attention about a week ago, and the principal correctly enforced the policy at that time,” he said.

Samantha Elliot’s piercings are surgically implanted and are not easy to take out, she said.

Pamela Elliot’s 14-year-old son was supposed to attend Portland High School, but she said she will home-school him instead.