Students are waging war on sexist and racist school dress codes — and they’re winning
Traditional dress codes punish marginalized students disproportionately, but this anti-racist, anti-sexist dress code could fix that.
Emma Stein was just a freshman when she was cited for a dress code violation at her school, suburban Chicago’s Evanston Township High School. A security guard said her dress was too short, so Stein had to pull a pair of sweatpants over her clothes. She was not punished for the infraction, but it was still a really upsetting experience.
“It added a level of insecurity to this already stressful time,” Stein recalled.
Stein wasn’t the only one troubled by the dress code at the 3,700-student school. In 2016, students staged a protest demanding a new policy that didn’t discriminate along gender or racial lines.
And the school’s administration listened.
“We needed to look at getting a new dress code, and we wanted to make sure it was body-positive and didn’t marginalize students,” the school’s principal, Marcus Campbell, said.
In 2017, Evanston Township High School debuted its new dress code, which permitted tank tops, leggings, hats, and other previously banned items. The policy also stated that students were not to be marginalized based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity markers.
The story of Evanston Township High School’s dress code is an increasingly common one. As dress code controversies sweep the education system, parents and students are fighting back against policies that they see as sexist, racist, or both. And more and more schools are listening to these protests, adopting guidelines that reflect a new understanding of what constitutes “appropriate” student dress.
Oregon NOW’s model dress code has had an international impact
Adopting a new dress code isn’t easy when most existing policies are several years old and contain many of the biases schools are edging away from now. So, the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women devised a model policy for Portland Public Schools that took effect in 2016 and has since spread across the country.
School districts such as Evanston’s District 202 and California’s San Jose Unified have either borrowed heavily from the dress code policy or adopted it outright. Praised for being inclusive, progressive, and body-positive, the Oregon NOW model may be the Continue reading; Students are waging war on sexist and racist school dress codes — and they’re winning - Vox
