School Dress Code Effects

The Negative Effects of School Dress Codes

In an era of crop tops, short shorts, and cut-out tees, the question of what is appropriate for students to wear in school is a commonly asked question by parents and school administration alike. The concept of school dress codes is sensible in the aspect of the desire to protect students. However, dress code censorship is often biased depending on upbringing or culture, lacks gender equality, and limits student’s individual expression.

School dress codes vary depending on the upbringing and culture of the writers and the enforcers of the rules, and they cannot always be applied to everyone. G.A. Buie, principal of Eudora High School in Kansas says, “Sometimes as an adult, you almost get embarrassed

for the kids. That’s where some of the challenges come in. [For example,] these shorts look OK on this person, but maybe that’s not appropriate on someone else” (Summers). In other words, there are cases in schools where an outfit that is considered appropriate on one student, could be seen as inappropriate on a different student because of their body type. The same clothes vary in appearance based on people’s body type or other factors. Rules such as the one for shorts to be fingertip length or longer, are unfair to students with long arms. Also, the direct application of the dress code is left mainly to the administrators. For instance: “A hemline that’s too short for Principal A may look perfectly fine to Principal B” (Summers). In addition to an irregular application of the code, dress codes also tend to have gender bias.
Dress codes generally have very little equality amongst genders. “Regulations are more restrictive for women than for men,” says Juanna Summers and Aly Seidel (Summers). This is mainly believed to be because women could be considered a “distraction” for men. The regulations against females have a tendency to have a greater focus on covering as much exposed skin as possible, while the rules for males tend to be more moderate. There is an obvious taint of sexism within the dress code. “Rules for boys that prohibit certain kinds of jewelry or hoodies have nothing to with their sexuality,” says Jessica Valenti, a big advocate for gender equality in schools (Valenti). She only emphasizes the point that the schools need to review and revise their policies. The rights of students must also be taken into consideration when it comes to the dress code.
Dress codes limit, and often restrict, individual expression.

“While a person’s choice of clothing may be predicated solely on consideration of style and comfort, an individual’s attire may be endowed with sufficient levels of intentional expression to elicit First Amendment shelter,” says James Kozlowski when explaining the rights of students (Kozlowski). The restriction of student’s attire violates their right to Individual Expression. It is unjust to restrict students from expressing their opinions, and “the fact that other students, teachers, or school administrators may disagree with, dislike, or object to a message conveyed on student clothing does not constitute sufficient disruption of the learning environment or interference of other student’s rights” (Hendrie). Students should be free to express their opinion. Restricting their rights also endangers the future of students because “dress codes teach students that conformity and obedience to authority are most important. Individuality is suppressed. Student voice is suppressed” (Pros). The students must not be denied their right to the expression of their beliefs.

A belief exists that dress codes are beneficial for schools because they promote a “positive educational environment” (Pros). However, influences such as culture, gender bias, and many other things often taint the positive effects of the dress code. Though Clinton says, “after students started wearing uniforms, there was a substantial decrease in student drug cases, sex offenses, assault and battery cases, and fights,” other factors could have influenced the data such as a higher police presence (Clinton). The accuracy of the data is questionable and a bias may

exist.
There’s no “correct” way to enact a dress code, so it becomes questionable why such a thing would exist in the first place. A dress code is of no use to school systems as it is impossible to do without restricting student’s rights, causing inequality amongst genders, and or being biased depending on the administrations. Instead of using dress codes to suppress student voice and prevent conflict, “Let the debate go on in public school as long as it doesn’t go into hate speech… Let the voices be heard” (Haynes). Instead of making atrocious decisions such as suspending a Colorado third-grader for shaving her head to support a friend undergoing cancer treatment just because her baldness violated the dress code, school systems should allow students to apply their own discretion to their choice of apparel. Let them discover for themselves what to wear.