School Dress Codes Research Paper

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

The United States Constitution protects the fundamental rights of any and all American citizens. By calling out students for how to choose to express themselves, school officials violate the elementary rights that were guaranteed by the founding fathers.

Religion and Race. School dress codes often contain outrageous rules that target different religions and races. For instance, take the case of Nashala Hearn. Nashala, a 13-year-old student, was not permitted her right as an American citizen to wear her hijab, as the school’s dress code did not allow it. However, she refused, received multiple suspensions, and eventually took the case to court where she won (Hunter). The school should not have even been allowed to take

Cruel and unusual punishments are not permitted as stated in the Eighth Amendment, yet schools seem to ignore this when it comes to doling out their consequences for breaking dress code. For example, Emmeline Zhao, former Wall Street Journal’s Economics writer, reported that officials at a junior high school in Marshall, Texas took the dress code to extreme measures when they colored in a student’s partly shaved head with a sharpie. The perpetrators cited the school’s dress code’s rule of “prohibiting designs shaved into the head” as their defense. That was a definite violation of his body and rights and a first seen by many. Another instance that took place, not too far, from Marshall Junior High, had a student disciplined with an in-school suspension for having pink hair after participating in a charity color run. The principal of Edna Elementary School told reporters that the unusualness of the color was against school policy (Svokos). While it might be shocking to see brightly dyed hair, the young girl’s hair color was for a good reason and beyond her control. Perhaps, the cruelest punishment that schools can give out is public humiliation. After school administrators dress coded her for having a skirt four inches above the knee as opposed to three inches, Washington Post reporter, Gail Sullivan, described when a new student, Miranda Larkin, was subjected to wear red sweatpants and a humongous, bright yellow T-shirt. Even Oakleaf High School’s intention of this outfit was to shame the wearer. Why not just slap a scarlet A on the student and mortify them further? In many events, like the ones shown above, schools have come up with severe and strange sentences for breaking the rules, that when encountered may never leave the student’s