School Dress Codes And Their Impact On Students

Dress codes have been around since 1969(Reuters). Ever since they have been around, they have had a negative impact on students. A dress code is a set of rules that determine what clothing groups of people must wear. They deem what is appropriate and what is inappropriate to wear to school. Teachers and staff at schools enforce the dress code. School dress codes are unfair because they target women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and almost never guys. Dress codes target the clothing and accessories that women can wear to school. An example is a quote from ¨The Sexism of School Dress Codes¨ saying ¨At Woodford County High the dress code bans shirts and shorts that fall higher than the knee and shirts that extend below the collarbone¨(Zhou).

Galan Sherwin writes, ¨Dress and grooming policies that prohibit certain hairstyles- including hair extensions, braids or locs- often disproportionately punish Black students and are rooted in racist standards of professionalism and respectability¨(Sherwin).Depending on where people come from they have hairstyles that are unique to them. They should be allowed to wear their hair how they want to wear it. He also says, ¨Black girls, in particular, are often seen as less innocent and more adult-like, aggressive and threatening, and needing less support and protection- often known as the adultification bias"(Sherwin). Being of a certain race shouldnt decide how people treat them. People shouldn't treat certain races differently because they think they are less innocent because they don't know that specific person or that specific group of people. Another example is about a school,¨A Florida school turned away a Black first grader for wearing locs on his first day of school¨(Sherwin). Students should not be turned away just because they are wearing a certain hairstyle. Sherwin writes, "Students of color- and especially black girls and other girls of color- are disproportionately targeted for dress code enforcement because of intersecting race and gender stereotypes¨(Sherwin). Race should not be a reason students get dress

An example is a quote from the article ¨4 Things Public Schools Can and Can’t Do When it Comes to Dress Codes¨ saying, ¨Such policies also may punish LGBTQ+ students for not conforming with rigid and binary gender norms about proper behavior and appearance¨(Sherwin). They should be able to dress the way they feel and not how others want them to feel. Zhou writes, ¨Transgender students have been sent home for wearing clothing different than what's expected of their legal sex, while others have been excluded from yearbooks¨(Zhou). Students should not be punished because they want to wear something that conforms with how they feel. They should feel welcome and not be excluded and punished for how they see themselves and how they want to express themselves. He also says, ¨Gender non-conforming and transgender students have also clashed with such policies on the grounds they have rigidly dictate how kids express themselves"(Zhou). Expressing themselves is very important to young people. Another example is from the article ¨How Much Can Public Schools Control What Students Wear¨ saying, "She was born biologically male, she has a female gender identity, the student sought out to wear clothing conforming to her gender identity. However the principal sent the student home to change when she arrived wearing girl's clothing¨(Boggs). Other people shouldn't be able to tell her