Students, parents bare claws over dress codes

Administrators see roadblock
Many parents endorse such rules, including Craig Minor of Lamar, Texas, father of a student at Lamar High School, which requires students to wear “a blue or white Lamar polo shirt and only khaki uniform pants and skirts” without decorative stitching or outside patch pockets.

That makes it a lot easier to get kids out the door in the morning, Minor said, because “it diffuses a lot of other issues of different types of clothing.”

But other parents find the restrictions stifling and counterproductive.

For Jacquelyn Totura, whose daughter attends a middle-school student in Starke, Fla., it’s a free-speech issue. She objected to the Bradford County School District’s decision this year to require students to wear solid-color polo or collared shirts and black, navy or khaki pants.

“It takes away her right to be an individual and her right to choose in the morning what she wants to wear and what she’s comfortable in,” Totura said.

School administrators and teachers who support dress codes say that in addition to making gang confrontations less likely, they help create an atmosphere conducive to learning.

Bradford County Superintendent Harry Hatcher said the policy allowed teachers and administrators “to focus on student achievement as opposed to issues that take away from that.”

To Teneal Gardner, a teacher at McCulloch Middle School in Marion, Ind., school uniforms help educators “prepare the kids to be successful in school.”

“When they're dressed nicer, they feel better and work hard,” Teneal said, commenting after parents sought an injunction against a new uniform policy at the school.

‘You’re punishing the children’
Usually when students and parents object, policies are explained and differences are hashed out at school board meetings. But sometimes, disputes end up in court.

School dress policies must meet a test the Supreme Court set in a landmark 1969 ruling, which established the right to free expression in school as long as it does not cause a “material or substantial disruption” of the education process. Administrators’ determination of what is disruptive often leads to protests from both sides of the political spectrum.

The Liberty Legal Institute, a conservative policy organization, is considering suing the Dallas Independent School District after administrators at Seagoville High School ordered a Catholic student last month to remove or conceal her rosary.

And in Gonzales, Texas, near San Antonio, parents are considering legal action over a new policy that requires students who come to school dressed inappropriately to either go home or put on a school-provided prison-style jumpsuit — one actually made by Texas inmates. Police had to restore order at a recent school board meeting where parents heatedly complained about the new policy.

“You’re punishing the children,” Gracie Mercer, mother of a Gonzales student, told board members. “You guys aren’t concerned about their education.”

Officials rebuffed the critics and said the policy would stay in place.

“We’re a conservative community,” Deputy Superintendent Larry Wehde said. “We’re just trying to make our students more reflective of that.”

Mixed record in court
In a legal analysis of dress code policies, the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., said courts remained divided over how much weight to give schools’ assessments of what constitutes “material or substantial disruption.”

Judges usually side with administrators if a student’s clothing sends a violent or discriminatory message, or if it advocates drug use. But if it has a clear political message, the decision usually goes the other way.

“The courts have divided over how to resolve dress code disputes and reached different results,” the report found. “The legal landscape remains muddled over dress codes and uniforms.”

But sometimes, school officials will admit they’ve gone too far. That’s what happened in Fresno, Calif., last month when administrators at Dos Palos High School apologized to Jake Shelly, a sophomore whom they forced to change into a shirt bearing the words “Dress Code Violator.”

Jake’s proscribed apparel? A T-shirt sporting the American flag. The Dos Palos-Oro Loma Joint Unified School District’s dress code prohibits “shirts or blouses that promote specific races, cultures or ethnicities.”

After the American Legion protested, Superintendent Brian Walker agreed that the policy had been poorly applied. The ensuing uproar, he said, was a learning experience for everyone involved.

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