Students Protest Dress Codes

Throughout the years the debate over school dress has been a hot topic, while dress codes are nothing new, they have been a growing issue that past few decades. According to Laura Birkett on the Toronto Star, “For as long as there have been teenagers, there have been adults aghast at their habits... often expressed by their wardrobe” (“Students Protest Dress Codes” IN7). Dress codes pose to have no actual effect on students in today's world. Birkett also explained that with a dress code or without it kids will do what they want and will still, most likely, grow up to me respectable adults in the working class (“Students Protest Dress Codes” IN7). Dress codes have been proven unnecessary and therefore, have no positive benefits for students.

Boys ought to be the ones being taught what appropriate behavior is, instead of having to teach girls that they should have to hide their bodies to feel safe from the actions of boys (Wallace). The message that lies beneath the dress code is what is so discriminatory. Producer, Maggie Sunseri, of “Shame: A Documentary on School Dress Code”, came out to explain that, “My Principal says that the main reason for [it] is to create a distraction- free learning zone for our male counterparts”(quoted in Lindsay). School officials are admitting to the fact that these codes show sexism, saying that the codes are there to prevent actions of boys from what the girls decide to wear themselves. This showing an obvious gender bias. Rowena Lindsay addresses in her article from Christian Science Monitor that, students of the Boston Latin School have gone to the extreme of creating online petitions because they believe that the codes are creating a world where a woman's choice on clothing is being controlled by men (Lindsay). If kids feel it necessary enough to make a large stand, there is a serious negative effect these codes are having on the lives of these students. From the body shaming behavior the dress code inflicts and the sexist society, it has come to create these students being affected by it have been degraded as humans, and have suffered nothing but negative effects from the

Often, it seems as if dress codes don’t treat the students in school like they are actually people, which Laura Birkett on the Toronto Star explains clearly, “Teenagers are, after all, human beings to whom the principles of equal rights and freedom of expression apply”(“Students Protest Dress Codes” IN7). Students are in fact, humans and do get the privilege of expression and therefore, are to be treated just as equal as other human beings. Charles Haynes, writing for Gale Opposing Viewpoints declares, freedom of speech is a right all U.S. citizens hold, and banning certain clothes takes that right away from students (Haynes). Keeping someone from expressing certain things on clothes is also keeping them from expressing their first amendment right. Upsets about school dress codes have gone far enough to take it to court. Lawsuits, a lot like the Tinker vs. Des Moines case, that was brought to the supreme court, have often been the result of dress codes that strip students of their god given rights. Charles Haynes states that, often school boards have not won because their codes are viewed by the court as unconstitutional (Haynes). Often dress codes are looked at as illogical and don’t have much support behind them as to why certain things are banned to begin with, and courts do take that into consideration. In