School+Dress+codes+(Timmy)

hudson, karen. "school censorship-fighting back." //about.com//. about.com. 17 Apr 2009 . "Missouri School Censors Gay Student." //morons.org//. 10/42/04. 20 Apr 2009 . "Censorship: Parent VS. The Schools." //epinions.com//. May 07 '01. epinions.com. 20 Apr 2009 . > T.R "Student in skirt challenges dress code." //libertarianrock//. (9/17/99). libertarianrock. 22 Apr 2009 . Hudson, David. "Clothing, Dress code & Uniforms." //firstamendmentcenter.org//. 4/22/09. firstamendmentcenter.org. 22 Apr 2009 . “I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.” T.R
 * Address your concerns in a responsible and mature manner. Request that the school's dress code be evaluated for fairness, and give legitimate reasons why you feel it should be changed. Be firm and speak loudly, but don't lose your temper. T.R
 * If you have several students and parents to attend the meeting and back you up, this will help your voice to be heard. T.R
 * Maybe your school officials really think that you are in the minority and that most students like the dress code the way it is.T.R
 * The only way you're going to prove that the majority of the school is on your side is by getting petitions. T.R
 * Understand that teachers may need to stay politically neutral and may not sign your petition, but it never hurts to ask.T.R
 * You'll need signatures of around (at least) 75% of the student body to get the attention of the board. T.R
 * Demonstrations and pickets are a way to be heard without sound.T.R
 * If people start getting loud and obnoxious, or start fighting and being disrespectful, it only proves that you (the students) can't handle freedom of expression.T.R
 * You can make your point much clearer if you can prove this is not all just an act of rebellion or a way to skip a day of school. T.R
 * If all other attempts have failed, start climbing the ladder of authority. Everyone (even the principal) has a boss they have to answer to - go as high as you need to if you feel they will listen more readily than ground level administrators. T.R
 * If not, you can go as far as the ACLU, which has a history of helping students and their families fight for equality. T.R
 * When all else fails, there comes a time when a mature and responsible person must accept defeat and move on. You have to go to school and it's only for a few years.T.R
 * It's really not the end of the world if you have to adhere to a dress code or wear a uniform for a short time. When you get home, you can throw the uniform on the floor. When you graduate, you can burn it. But don't waste your time fighting a losing battle. T.R
 * Once you enter the workforce, you'll no doubt encounter the same problems again. The main point of school is getting an education. Sometimes the best education is experience, so if you feel the need to take a political stance, then by all means do so.T.R
 * The American Civil Liberties Union has come to the defense of a high school junior who was sent home twice from school for wearing t-shirts bearing gay pride messages. T.R
 * "This school allows its students to freely express their views on gay and lesbian rights - but only if they're on the anti-gay side of the issue," said Jolie Justus, a member of the legal panel for the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, noting that bumperstickers in favor of Missouri's recently-passed anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment are ubiquitous in the school's hallways and parking lot.T.R
 * "This is a classic case of censorship. Brad Mathewson has the same Constitutional right to political speech and expression that the Supreme Court says all students have."T.R
 * Mathewson was sent to the principal's office by his homeroom teacher on October 20 after she spotted his t-shirt. T.R
 * The shirt bears the name of the GSA at his old high school in Fayetteville, Arkansas (FHS Gay-Straight Alliance), a pink triangle, and the words, "Make a Difference!" When an assistant principal saw it, he told Mathewson to go home and change shirts because someone might be offended by it.T.R
 * Although Mathewson pointed out the anti-gay marriage stickers seen throughout the school, his concerns were ignored.T.R
 * Mathewson was again disciplined when he came to school on October 27 wearing a t-shirt featuring a rainbow and the phrase, "I'm gay and I'm proud."T.R
 * "Even though nobody complained about my t-shirts my school told me I couldn't wear them just because someone might get offended," T.R
 * "But every day I see students at my school with anti-gay stickers on their notebooks and sometimes on their shirts, and I find that offensive. I understand that they have a right to express what they think, but I have a right to do the same thing."T.R
 * Mathewson and his mother met with school officials yesterday morning to express their concerns about the censorship. In the meeting, two assistant principals and the principal told Mathewson that they wouldn't allow him to wear shirts bearing gay pride messages because they feared it would cause controversy.T.R
 * In a letter sent late yesterday to school, the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri pointed to the school's dress code policy, which only states that students' clothing must be "free of obscene or suggestive markings, advertisements of tobacco, alcoholic beverages, drugs, and/or other products deemed inappropriate by school officials." T.R
 * The ACLU goes on to demand that officials remove any mention of the incident from Mathewson's records and allow him to wear the shirts without fear of punishment.T.R
 * "You can't trample someone's First Amendment rights just because someone might take offense at what that person has to say," said Dick Kurtenbach, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. "Schools that unlawfully censor students' views should be given an F in civics."T.R
 * The recently formed LGBT Task Force of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri is working with the national ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project in handling Mathewson's complaint.T.R
 * Brad pointed out that other students have stickers on their notebooks and backpacks expressing their personal views that gay marriage is wrong and that could be distracting to students who disagree with them but Mr. Thornsberry simply said that was not the same thing without giving a detailed explanation. Mr. Thornsberry gave Brad the option of changing his shirt or turning it inside-out.T.R
 * While I don't hear much about censorship at the private Christian school my daughter attends, I am sure that it is happening today. The Christian school that she goes to has rules that the parents have to abide by. T.R
 * The children have a dress code and aren't allowed to bring in any items that are not school books or has to do with homework. T.R
 * They also have a library which books are picked out by a group of people that run the school and then are approved by the principal. At open house, parents are allowed to come in to the school and look at all the books in the library.T.R
 * Censorship has never been a problem in this school because the school has rules. If the parent does not like what books are allowed in the school then the parent has two options.T.R
 * The first is to accept it. The second option is to find your child a new school. They feel that since they are not government funded they are allowed to choose what they feel is best for the students as a whole. T.R
 * While I do not always agree with the school, I have learned to teach what the school doesn't to my child when she is at home.
 * I am not for or against censorship. I do not think that the school has a right to ban classic books that have been around for ages. Rather I feel that the school needs to work with the parents to come to some sort of resolution.T.R
 * No one has the right to tell my child what they can or can't read. Until she is eighteen years of age, I feel that I have the right to ban or share certain books or opinions with my child. I think a lot of people feel this way. T.R
 * I think that schools and parents should come together and have an open house. They should have a display with books that have been a question in the past.T.R
 * I also feel that the whole library should be on display for parent to know what there children are reading. Don't wait until little Susie brings a book that you despise home. T.R
 * If a parent finds a book that he or she feels that is not appropriate, then there should be a list drawn up for each child. On this list would include all books that the parent does not wish there child to check out. The school should honor the parents wishes. T.R
 * Also, at the beginning of the year I feel that parent should find out what the teacher will be teaching. Find out what books are expected of your child to read. I think that alternative books should be allowed if a parent feels strongly against a book.T.R
 * I also feel that if the parent did not take the time to find out what their child would be learning and expected to read then they don't have any right to complain when your child comes home with a book that you did not like. T.R
 * While my daughter has no problems with censorship at the moment, I remember when I was in high school. I remember having to do book reports. Before we were allowed to read our book a parental slip was sent home to each parent.T.R
 * The parent had the option on whether or not this book was suitable for their children. I think that this was a great idea. T.R
 * I thinks that working together would really be beneficial. We are all different. No two people think exactly a like. What I would feel to be offensive might not be to another parent. Shouldn't we the parents have the right to know what are children are being taught? T.R
 * If we start taking away books where will it end? What lessons will our children be taught? T.R
 * Overall, I feel that the parents should have the say in what their children read. In the same sense, parents should be respected when they don't want a book to be read by their child. Don't ban books, but rather give us a choice. T.R
 * Edward Shinkle, a student in Charlotte County, Virginia, recently challenged his high school's gender-based dress code by wearing his mother's skirt. T.R
 * The principal and assistant principal immediately forced him to go home and return with traditional male attire. Now Shinkle is fighting back by circulating a petition seeking support for him to wear a skirt and he has contacted the ACLU for a legal challenge. T.R
 * "When I got off the bus that morning I noticed it wasn't the students that were upset about it. It was the teachers," T.R
 * The Charlotte County school code restricts attire or appearance that is distracting or disruptive. Superintendent Larry Dunn defended the code and school officials, who restricted Shinkle, by claiming that they kept a distraction out of the classroom. T.R
 * "It didn't take long to figure out it was disruptive," Dunn said. "That was obvious before he got off the bus." T.R
 * According to Shinkle, his skirt distracted only the teachers and the other administrators.T.R
 * His mother agreed. "I think a mountain is being made out of a molehill," said Leslie Kennedy.T.R
 * They should have ignored it, and he never would have done it again. The bus driver ignored it. I ignored it. The other children in the house ignored it. But the two experts at the school didn't ignore it." T.R
 * Shinkle thinks the issue is more about control than distraction. "I don't feel like I was violating the dress code at all," he said. "The school is trying to control how people dress so drastically." T.R
 * Shinkle wore the skirt to support a female friend's plan to step out of character and wear baggy pants. She did not follow through. T.R
 * There must be something about the skirt that particularly irks government employees. Perhaps, the sight of a man in a skirt is so different that it may encourage students to question the fashion status quo.T.R
 * Then if students realize that skirts are indeed very comfortable for both genders, they may start to question the wisdom of the entire dress code. T.R
 * In fact, students may realize that the government is wrong about a lot of things. They'll start to question all gender restrictions, the bans on backpacks and even the lack of a fast food restaurant at school.T.R
 * They may even question why the government has a monopoly on education, which brings us to the real distraction for government school administrators.T.R
 * If students start to clamor for change, eventually they'll want to go to private schools, which means that in an indirect way, Shinkle's skirt actually threatens his principal's job. T.R
 * School officials are more worried about social change than about one student in a skirt. T.R
 * Therefore, they try to suppress all forms of expression that may lead students to think for themselves and inevitably question their role in the government's penal system. T.R
 * If school officials were actually worried about distractions, then they would get rid of the metal detectors, the drug-sniffing dogs, and the on-site SWAT teams. T.R
 * How can a student concentrate when he studies in a prison. Officials would also focus are the real distractions to academia such as noisy students and classrooms without air conditioners.T.R
 * Edward Shinkle said that he has long been a social outcast with his schoolmates. He should actually refer to himself as an individual. But then his principal would definitely suspend him. T.R 67
 * Many public schools adopted dress codes and uniforms after then-President Bill Clinton endorsed uniforms in his 1996 State of the Union address:
 * Long Beach Unified School District reported seeing a marked reduction in school disciplinary problems and violence after instituting a mandatory school-uniform policy. Public school districts across the country have followed suit. T.R
 * Other districts have not mandated uniforms, but have instituted dress codes that prohibit certain clothing. Commonly prohibited attire includes clothing that reveals too much of the body, contains racially insensitive symbols, promotes alcohol or tobacco, or suggests violence. T.R
 * Ironically, both opponents and proponents of student dress codes point to the same U.S. Supreme Court ruling to support their positions — //[|Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District]// (1969). T.R
 * In this famous decision, the Court ruled 7-2 that public school officials could not censor student expression — the wearing of black armbands, in that case — unless they could reasonably forecast that the student expression would cause substantial disruption or material interference with school activities or would invade the rights of others.T.R
 * Dress-code opponents emphasize that students convey a multitude of messages on their clothing, ranging from political slogans, music lyrics, and support for a favorite athletic team. They argue that school officials cannot censor student expression unless they can show that the clothing will disrupt the school environment.T.R
 * They contend that //Tinker// stands for the fundamental principle that students have the right to wear clothing with messages, just as the students in the 1960s could wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. T.R
 * However, those who favor dress codes cite a specific passage from //Tinker// in support of their position. In //Tinker,// the Court wrote: “The problem posed by the present case does not relate to regulation of the length of skirts or the type of clothing, to hair style or deportment.” T.R
 * Yet opponents seize on this language to emphasize that even //Tinker// recognized that disputes over types of clothing do not raise the same free-speech interests as regulation of the type of expression at issue with armbands. T.R
 * Some courts apply the //Tinker// standard to determine if school officials can regulate student clothing. This standard asks whether school officials can reasonably forecast whether the student expression will cause a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities.T.R
 * For instance, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a portion of a school’s dress code in //Newsom v. Albemarle County School Board// that prohibited clothing depicting weapons. T.R
 * In its December 2003 decision, the 4th Circuit determined that the policy was too broad and was not necessary to prevent disruptions at school.T.R
 * The court explained that the language of the school dress code would prohibit clothing bearing the state seal of Virginia, which depicts a woman holding a spear, or clothing bearing the athletic mascot of the University of Virginia, which contains two crossed sabers. T.R
 * This two-part test asks: (1) whether the student intended to convey a particular message, and (2) whether reasonable observers would understand this message. T.R
 * A federal district court in New Mexico applied this standard to rule that a public school student did not have a First Amendment right to wear sagging jeans. T.R
 * In //Bivens v. Albuquerque Public Schools,// the judge questioned whether sagging pants conveyed any particular message: “Sagging is not necessarily associated with any single racial or cultural group, and sagging is seen by some merely as a fashion trend followed by many adolescents all over the United States.” T.R
 * The judge said that even if sagging somehow constituted a message, the student failed to establish that reasonable observers would understand any message coming from the wearing of sagging pants.T.R