Junior High Students Protest Short Skirt Policy

[struggle4progress]

POSTED: 1:18 pm CDT October 28, 2006
UPDATED: 1:26 pm CDT October 28, 2006

GLEN ELLYN, Ill. -- Some suburban Chicago junior high students are protesting their school's ban on short skirts.

Administrators at Hadley Junior High School in Glen Ellyn are cracking down on the school's dress code, which requires skirts to be no shorter than the mid-thigh ...

But students were fighting back, saying the ban infringes on their right to express themselves and that the rule has not been applied equally to everyone.

To protest the policy, many girls wore mid-thigh or shorter skirts to school on a recent day.

The students were also distributing a petition protesting the dress code.

http://www.nbc5.com/education/10181469/detail.html


I can't remember anybody in my junior high school ever protesting anything, so I'm always pleased to see kids with an anti-authoritarian attitude ...

[Deja Q]

1. They're children, who are supposed to be learning. Not titillating.

I recall when I was in jr (and sr) high. What kids were allowed to get away with back then was horrendous. And that was only 20 years ago!

[IDARNG_Loki]

20. Bingo

They are there to learn not to oggle each other. It's a school, not a bar or dance club.

[rubberducky]

2. This brought a smile to my face!!

Hooray for them!! I wore the mini-skirts back in my "glory days", and they should be allowed to, also. I hope these young people never lose thier fighting spirit!!

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. This is certainly worth looking in to..................

[rurallib]

4. When I was a young man I always supported short skirts

On either boys or girls. Mostly the girls wore them. And I was always in favor.
Not on my daughters though.

[madrchsod]

5. ahh...mid thigh for 7 and 8th graders?

i guess every generation the skirts keep getting shorter...shorter skirts than mid thigh? i maybe old but that`s just plain wrong...it`s school not a mtv video.sorry kids the school has the right to decide what is appropriate dress even though your parents don`t or don`t give a shit...save your protests for the things that really matter-a decent education and taking no bullshit from the teachers and administration about your views-not your clothes

[wellstone dem]

6. hear hear, nt

[reichstag911]

7. Pictures?!?!?

:sarcasm:

[babylonsister]

8. I wish they'd protest the war instead of this. They'd gain some

credibility for more frivolous protests.

[struggle4progress]

9. I agree but they're only in junior high school. Of course, the issue choice is silly

but the fact that they're already willing to grumble back at authority makes me feel optimistic.

[IDARNG_Loki]

21. Go to school, then become an activist

Kids are kids, they shouldn't worry about everyday issues until later on. They need to get an education first before they start protesting for a cause.

[Mojorabbit]

10. We did the same thing in the early seventies

when I was in junior high and high school. Some things never change. There were the same kind of protests by the guys who wanted their hair long too. Good training for standing up to authority for the things that matter to them which at that age is being able to wear what they want. I progressed from that to protesting the vietnam war and here I am protesting with code pink in my fifties. I say more power to em.

[Bitwit1234]

11. What's wrong with short skirts

I am 73 years old. Back in the 70's they wore short skirts and mine were right there with the rest of them. I was married and my husband did not mind. The only reason short skirts are frowned on is the "frowner" has an evil mind.

[SheilaT]

12. What I always find

hilarious, and quite wrong-headed, in all the debates surrounding what kids may or may not wear in school, is the claim that the right to express themselves is being somehow infringed. \

My sons attended a secular private school, which in the early 90's had a fairly rigid dress code -- shirts with collars for boys, shirts/blouses tucked in both sexes, etc. There was, during that time frame, a lot of discussion about the possibility of uniforms. I recall one of my older son's classmates then proclaiming bitterly that if they went to a uniform, then the only way he could express his individuality would be through his hair. I laughed out loud at him, pointing out that my son -- who has an auto-immune condition, alopecia areata, which has rendered him totally bald -- would not even have that means of self expression.

The really amusing thing of all the dress code protest to me is that the high school students remain blissfully unaware that many jobs in the adult world require a far more restrictive dress code than whatever is currently in force in high schools.

As I like to tell kids, if their own individual and unique personality does not come through no matter how they are dressed, then, well, what a shame.

[struggle4progress]

13. In my junior high school, the kids rather docilely did as they were told

and did not confront authority directly.

There was, of course, plenty of indirect silly rebellion, when the authorities turned their backs, followed by hypocritical fawning and sanctimony when the authorities' gaze returned.

I don't expect children to rebel in a mature manner, exhibiting defensible reasoning -- especially since that's rare enough from adults.

But learning to rebel in childhood is a learning experience which may prepare one for more adult rebellions.

And personally I'd rather see the children grow up having practiced some open defiance, than merely having learned to misbehave when teacher isn't watching ...

[appleton14]

16. Dress Code

Dear Sheila,

Just read your e-mail and totally agree with you. Kids that age just protest for the sake of protesting. I sure remember my teenage years. I believe most of them do not know exactly why they are protesting--its just that an adult said something is so. For instance, if an adult tells them the sun rises in the east, they'll protest and say it rises in the west, etc., etc.

[Tempest]

19. Kids today are nothing like yesterday

They are much more well informed thanks to the Internet and other technological advances in information sharing.

I'm afraid your worldview of teenagers is woefully out of date.

[kestrel91316]

14. I was at the forefront of the short skirt wars in junior high

in Utah, waaaaayyyyy back in, oh, 1970-71.

Back then the Mormons who controlled everything required skirts nearly to the knee. I moved there from CO where things were just a tad more liberal, and a series of skirmishes between school administration and me, with Mom and Dad riding shotgun, ensued.

By the time I left at the end of 9th grade, everybody was wearing very short skirts just like me.

[KitSileya]

15. What worries me, are the health hazards of current female fashion.

I teach in high school, and what a majority of the girls wear is nothing short of hazardous to their health. Short, short skirts with thin thights underneath in stormy November weather, bare midriffs and a decolletage that is extreme even for evening wear. No proper coats, only small stretch-material jackets, no proper shoes but sneakers when it rains 5 inches in a day. When they wear pants, they're so long that the hemline trails the ground soaking up moisture, meaning that they sit in classrooms wet to their knees - if not more, because they only use umbrellas instead of raincoats. When I mention to some of my girls who are sick with colds, bronchitis, and pneumonia, that perhaps their clothes are a contributing factor, and that we're in Bergen in November and not Mallorca in July, they're all surprised. The boys too don't wear proper outerwear - no rainproof coats or scarves, but luckily caps and wollen hats are fashionable.

To be honest, the skirt thing isn't what would bother me most, but the way their necklines plunge beneath their breasts, showing half the breast minus the nipple - I'm a female, and I get distracted and have trouble looking them in their faces.

[Codeblue]

17. My high school

nearly degenerated into outright anarchy and student strikes my junior and senior year. The dress code set it all off, but other factors, better ones, became part of it. It became common in our halls to see stickers saying "Police State DCHS." The main thrust of our argument was our loss of any and all rights as soon as we stepped onto our school campus. They could dictate what words we used, what we wore, what we wrote in our own notebooks or kept in our lockers. Once they started doing random police searches, we decided that was it. We never succeeded in really changing anything, but we did manage to not get punished for dress code violations for the remainder of the year. Unfortunately, the lack of any real changes meant that future generations were subjected to the same abuses of power.

Really though, we hated our school. I don't remember it being a problem though until Georgy Boy stole the election. Since then, seems like kids are becoming more socially and politically conscious and active.

[rollopollo]

18. Rights

Schools sometimes behave as if people under 18 have no rights. They may have different rights, such as voting and alcohol, but they fall under the constitution like everyone else. I'm no lawyer, and I don't know what the particulars are for kids in school and what latitude schools have in imposing these restrictions. But the legal aspect aside, it seems some of these school administrators don't even consider that people under 18 should have the maximum possible ability to exercise free will.

[Heathen57]

22. A good time to start learning

about how the system works, and how to assert what few rights the students have.

Our son who has ADHD was labeled a troublemaker early on and the school targeted him for anything that went wrong.

After Columbine, it became worse since he wore black to school. Every random search of the student body included him and his friends.

One day he had enough. The next time he was pulled in and the principal brought in the police to search him for a $4.00 tupperware bowl, he pulled out a notebook that contained every case the ACLU has ever filed for student rights. As he started to flip through looking for a certain case doing with unreasonable searches, the cop stepped back and declared he would not take part in the whole thing.

He carried that notebook every day until he reached the age of 16 and could take his GED.