Victoria Schantz was a senior last year when the Women’s Empowerment Club at Indian Trail High School in Kenosha, Wisc., decided to take on the district’s dress code. In some cases, the protests from students and parents are making an impact. Additionally, girls of color, who are more likely to wear styles such as braids, hair extensions, and Afros, are more likely to be disciplined, as the Louisiana 6th grader was.Īccording to the American Civil Liberties Union, dress codes are legal as long as they do not “treat boys and girls differently, force students to conform to sex stereotypes, or censor particular viewpoints.” (This includes protection for transgender, non-binary gender, or any other students who may choose to dress in nontraditional ways.) Nationwide, African-American girls are 5.5 times more likely than their white counterparts to be suspended from school, but it’s not clear what proportion of those punishments stem from dress-code issues.Īdrienne Dixson, a professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes dress codes can prevent self-expression among students. The concern is that students who may already be struggling academically fall farther behind in class when they miss too much time serving suspensions, changing clothes, or waiting while administrators measure their skirt lengths. “And when you add discipline to it, it’s really a disaster.” " sit at that intersection where they impact girls differently they impact black girls differently,” said Nia Evans, the NWLC’s manager of campaign and digital strategies and education. Since the report’s release, two of the schools have made changes to their dress policies. Common punishments for those violations included missing class time or facing suspension, as a result of hair, makeup, or clothing styles that were deemed inappropriate. In the one-on-one interviews, all of the girls reported experiencing or witnessing dress-code enforcement in their schools. Released in April, it examines the experiences of 21 black girls who attend or attended 12 District of Columbia schools, including charter schools, and analyzes districtwide student-discipline data. The study by the NWLC takes a rare quantifiable look at the issue. But, data on who’s being punished for dress-code violations and how the penalties are being meted out are harder to come by.
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Nationwide, 53 percent of public schools enforced a strict dress code during the 2015-16 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Students report that black girls, and especially curvier students, are disproportionately targeted.” Lost learning time “And the rules aren’t applied equally, either. “These rules aren’t neutral: many target girls, and especially black girls, by regulating skirt length and headwraps,” a report on school dress codes in the District of Columbia that was compiled by the National Women’s Law Center states. The majority have been created by students, and many of the petitions’ titles assert that their schools’ dress codes are sexist or unfairly enforced. The website now says it’s hosting more than 400 open petitions against individual school dress codes.
However, in an age of #MeToo and easy internet access, controversy is increasingly cropping up over whether excluding students from the classroom for violating dress codes is worthwhile, and whether such rules are disproportionately enforced against girls, and especially those of color. Schools with strict dress codes often claim that such regulations prevent in-class distractions, create a workplace-like environment, reduce pressures based on socioeconomic status, and deter gang activity. And a Roman Catholic school in New Orleans came into the internet spotlight when a 6th grader was forced to leave the classroom, in tears, for having braided hair extensions, which were against the school’s hair policy. Louis, Oakville High School’s principal is captured on video apologizing to parents after telling female students they should not show off their bodies for fear of “distracting” male classmates. In one of the latest episodes, a viral video initially meant to instruct students on the dress-code policy at Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas, drew intense criticism last month for depicting only girls as rule violators. School dress-code controversies have been trending on the web in recent months, fanning a controversy over whether schools are enforcing the rules in ways that discriminate against girls.
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