Dress Code Research Paper

School Uniforms are not the enemy. We see stories Social media has more stories of girls being sent home because of dress code violations. Maybe the problem isn’t the students, but dress codes in general. Dress codes ultimately disrupt the pursuit of knowledge for the students, encourage gender bias, and can be dangerous. If we want the younger generations to succeed in the education system, we should utilize school uniforms. Uniforms in schools from elementary to high schools, will promote gender equality and facilitate student safety.

How we dress is a daily routine we take for granted. In a public setting like a high school, how a student or students dress, can have a negative effect on the entire student body, even with a dress code. On

Many female students fall victim to the gender biased rules. In an article written by Lee Hale for NPR, one teen named Sophie Manoukian in Pasadena, CA, told a local news station that "[i]t 's like girls should be ashamed of their bodies. And even though they presented it like it was about equal opportunity for education, it was about how girls can be distracting and pulled out of class to change." Hale explores the struggles of being an educator and fighting the war against dress code violations. Some of the comments from the educators she spoke with noted confronting students about the dress code were not something that they enjoyed, and that they have encountered negative pushback from female students. There are numerous social media stories like Sophie 's, about a female student who was sent home because she was violating the school dress code. One of the educators Hale interviewed points out the need to take gender out of the dress code and make the rules non-gender specific to ease the perception of gender bias. Uniforms were not mentioned in that article as a potential solution, however, non-gender specific uniforms would greatly assist educators in reducing gender bias. In an essay written by Todd DeMitchell from the University of New Hampshire, he summarizes the positive influence uniforms could have on the gender biases saying that “[a]llowing educators to enact such policies will allow

Dress codes and uniforms have been deemed legal by the United States Supreme Court. As long as the dress code or uniform regulations pass a four-pronged test. Opposition for school uniforms holds fast to preserving the sanctity of freedom of speech. The supreme court ultimately has decided that dress codes and uniforms do not violate the freedom of speech. In Harold W. Mitchell and John C. Knechtle’s study of the first amendment rights and dress code, they note that in 1968 in Ginsberg v. New York the supreme court ruled that “[t]he state has power to control the conduct of children that reaches beyond its scope of authority over adults (491).” Mitchell and Knechtle go further into explaining the 4 pronged rule the supreme court uses to judge if a rule is against the freedom of