Should schools have dress codes?...As a (very) senior citizen, I feel more comfortable seeing people of all ages dress "appropriately."
I have just seen a TV report that posters on social media are forcing many schools to "change" (abolish?) their dress codes.
In this case, an elementary school male was turned away from the first day of school because he was wearing dreadlocks. I believe the school is a private one. His father took a video of the incident and called the school's action an example of "bias."
I also read today that one school is in deep trouble because female students were advised to "dress like a lady." Those four words created much outrage and were immediately deleted. The administrator humbly apologized.
Red:
- Yes.
- Schools do have dress codes.
Tan:
I don't know what it is that people act as though literally everything has been democratized, so to speak. They really should read the 1st Amendment. It says "
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ... or the right of the people peaceably to ... petition the government for a redress of grievances."
- While Congress (and, to an extent, by inference, the government) shall make no such law, the rest of society can and in many instances should just ignore many of these social media outbursts that attempt to politicize what really isn't a matter of politics, but rather a matter of managing a school, its students and its environment.
- Minors have only as much right to free expression as the adults in whose care they find themselves at any given moment are of a mind to grant.
- If a minor doesn't like the lengths of or limits on his/her freedom of expression, he has one option: grin and bear it.
- If a child's parent doesn't like the lengths of or limits on his/her child's freedom of expression in a school, the parent has several options: (1) grin and bear it, (2) send the child to a different school, or (3) home school the child.
I think social media is a wonderful thing, but I think too that it's given a voice to people who have every right to say what they want but who, frankly, don't deserve to be heard.
Blue:
Then the only people who have a say in the matter is the school's administration, alumni and trustees.
Pink:
I wish I could have seen the man in person so I could have burst into a guffaw before him.
It's a private school. That private schools have dress codes is not a novel notion, and they don't spring them on parents. In many instances, they're published online.
- E.g., Georgetown Prep --> "Hair is to be kept combed, neat, clean, and at a length and style judged appropriate by the Dean of Students [DoS]."
- What does that mean? It means:
- If one thinks one knows what the DoS will consider an appropriate "length and style," one can try whatever one wants and see what happens.
- If one is in doubt, ask.
- If one is in doubt and unwilling to ask, one can try whatever one wants and see what happens.
- Whether one's hairstyle is of an appropriate length and style is solely at the DoS' discretion, not the parent's and not the child's.
That man's solution is simple: put the child in a different school. I mean, really. Think about the substance of what that man is doing/saying.
He wants to enroll his child at XYZ school for "whatever" reasons he does, but he doesn't like that XYZ does "such and such;" therefore he's going to bitch and moan about it to get XYZ to stop doing "such and such."
"Dude," send your child to a school that has policies you agree with! Or get over it and STFU. It's a private school. Like all private schools, the school essentially says, as go all matters at the school, "This is how we do things here. If that works for you, apply for admission. If it doesn't, this isn't the school for you."
Private schools are allowed to be biased. Hell, they are so from the get go by din't of having selective admissions. Whoever thought a private school isn't biased? For Christ's sake, the reason most people send their kids to private schools is for one or another aspect of bias the school exhibits.