Op-Ed in LA Times on School Dress Codes

September 5, 2013 by Ruthann Robson

Today’s LA Times includes my op-ed “School Dress Codes: Miniskirt Madness” arguing that “School districts should focus more on educating students and less on enforcing seemingly arbitrary dress rules.”

Of course, it’s not just miniskirts. After reading the op-ed for other examples, also look for our recent posts on leggings, a seven year old’s “dreadlocks,” breast-cancer awareness bracelets, male cosmetics, the continuing controversy over confederate flags, the Second Amendment, and religious clothing, not to mention problems at graduation for students as well as parents.

And for even more, see Dressing Constitutionally.

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Leggings too Provocative? More on School Dress Codes

September 5, 2013 by Kara Wallis

Back to school wearing leggings? Perhaps not.

Highland High School of Salt Lake City, Utah posted several images on facebook and twitter to guide students on how to appropriately wear leggings to school —

As reported, the administration now requires that students cover up between the waist and thigh with another layer of clothing when wearing leggings. Though an outright ban has yet to happen, if the school deems a student’s leggings to be too tight, the student is given sweatpants and a T-Shirt saying “I Love My Administrator.”

Unlike past fashion trends of the youth involving too much skin showing (e.g., mini-skirts, spaghetti straps, etc.), leggings do not directly expose one’s body. However, as Assistant Principal Nelson told reporters, “Sometimes, they can be so tight that there’s really nothing left to the imagination.”

The actual dress code standard requires that clothing be of “modest design” and prohibits “provocative” dress.

Reactions have varied, but several students question the tightness of male athletic uniforms and have also commented that several teachers wear the tightly fitting pants. Others have noted that the school does not ban discrimination against LGBTQ students.

Seemingly unfazed by these points, the administration continues to focus on the trend of young women, finding the form fitting pants just too provocative for an educational environment.

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Charter School Hairstyles

September 4, 2013 by Ruthann Robson

Another charter school has decided that a student’s hairstyle is unacceptable.

As reported, the Deborah Brown Community School in Tulsa objected to a seven year old’s hairstyle described as “dreadlocks.” The school seems to have a policy banning “faddish” hairstyles. The child seems to have changed schools.

As a constitutional matter, the threshold issue is whether or not the charter school is sufficiently public to be deemed a “state actor” and thus be bound by our constitutional principles of equal protection and liberty, even for school children.

As a nonconstitutional matter, parents and other policy makers can bring pressure to bear on a private school in some of the same ways as they can bring pressure on elected school board officials.

City “Entertainment District” Proposes Dress Code

September 4, 2013 by Brett Dolin

Seeking to create a “sophisticated” and “family friendly” atmosphere, the organization running a Lincoln, Nebraska, “entertainment district” will reportedly enforce a dress code for those using its two outdoor courtyards.

The “entertainment district” consists of two courtyards separated by a public street, which can be closed and made part of the district during special events. The courtyards also serve as an outdoor dining space for a number of restaurants. The area is across the street from Pinnacle Bank Arena, home of the University of Nebraska’s men’s and women’s basketball teams.

The dress code, as reported, would ban clothing with profanity, tank tops, cut-off shirts, exposed underwear, excessively long shirts, excessively baggy clothing, wave caps (see below), “any type of clothing that could be used as a weapon,” and “clothing associated with gangs.” In addition, “all hats must be straight forward or straight back and not to the side.” Private security guards, information “ambassadors,” and off-duty police officers will enforce the dress code.

banned in the Lincoln “Entertainment District”?

The proposed dress code has already created some controversy in Lincoln, including worry that “those of certain demographics” will be unfairly targeted. Stefanie Warner, who oversees the district for the private operating company, reportedly stated that the project’s goal is “to create a more sophisticated and mature atmosphere for the young professionals we are trying to attract to the area,” “a family-friendly area,” and an area “unique from other areas of Lincoln.”

A vague dress code enforced on what might appear to be a public plaza (and street) by off-duty police officers seems like trouble. Those looking to challenge unfair expulsion from the “entertainment district” may be disappointed, however. While the Lincoln City Council created the district, and the dress code reportedly addresses council members’ security concerns, potential litigants will face the threshold issue of state action.

In the 2008 case of Villegas v. Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, discussed in Dressing Constitutionally, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the City of Gilroy, California, in a civil rights action brought by members of a motorcycle club. Off-duty police officers had expelled the club members from the Gilroy Garlic Festival, held in a public park, for violating a dress code. The “unwritten policy” in that case banned “gang colors or other demonstrative insignia, including motorcycle club insignia.” The Ninth Circuit held that the off-duty police action at the festival did not constitute state action: running festivals is not a “traditional municipal function” and the city was not a “moving force” behind the police enforcement of the dress code.

The Lincoln City Council has apparently ceded management of the “entertainment district” to a private organization, and the private organization will create and enforce the dress code. Although potential litigants might, for example, compare administration of a street and plaza to a “traditional government function,” they may, like the plaintiffs in Villegas, find the courthouse closed.

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Bar Exam Revises Headwear Policy After Hijab Incident

September 4, 2013 by Kara Wallis

After a proctor asked a test-taker to remove her hijab during the bar exam, the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners changed its policy regarding its approval process for headwear.

As reported, law graduate Iman Abdulrazzak received approval before the bar exam to wear her hijab during the test, as required by the exam’s security policy in July.

However, in the morning session of the 16-hour test, a proctor passed Iman this handwritten note:

Iman told reporters the interruption caused her considerable confusion and frustration, though she was able to receive official approval (again) during the lunch break.

Various news sources reported the incident, and a plethora of commentators chastised the board over the discriminating nature of the policy. The exam board then revised the policy, which now allows headwear worn during the exam for “religious reasons or reasons of medical necessity only.”

In addition to apologizing to Iman, the Executive Director of the exam board told reporters that “the decision to change the policy was an easy one to make.”

But if it was “an easy one to make,” why did it take this outrageous incident to elicit change? After all, requiring an anxious test-taker to jump through an approval process seems constitutionally questionable under the First Amendment’s right to free exercise of religion. With any luck the issue is resolved, at least in Massachusetts.

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Labor Day: Dressing Economically

September 2, 2013 by Ruthann Robson

Child labor was prominent in United States textile mills and child labor continues in the global attire industry.

Lewis Hines, who spent a decade as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, produced many haunting images of child labor.

The 1908 photograph below is the one that I found myself returning to again and again as I researched and wrote the chapter “Dressing Economically,” Hines entitled the photograph “Rhodes Mfg. Co., Lincolnton, N.C. Spinner. A moments glimpse of the outer world Said she was 10 years old. Been working over a year. Location: Lincolnton, North Carolina.”

In Hammer v. Dagenhart, decided a decade later, the United States Supreme Court would side with the interests of the Southern Cotton Manufacturers, the organization that challenged the federal statute seeking to regulate child labor, and hold Congress did not have such a power. The 5-4 majority concluded that to uphold Congressional authority to regulate child labor in textile mills would have dire consequences: “all freedom of commerce will be at an end, and the power of the states over local matters may be eliminated, and thus our system of government be practically destroyed.”

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Police Allegedly Remove Girls’ Hijabs in a Bronx Park

September 1, 2013 by Kara Wallis

On Monday night, NYPD officers reportedly detained four teens in a Bronx park, and during the process, the officers forcibly removed two Muslim girls’ hijabs.

Sisters, 12-year old Lamis and 14-year old Khalia, were playing at their neighborhood park when two officers told the girls to leave. As reported, when the teenage girls went to exit the park, the officers followed and attacked them, forcefully bringing them to the ground. While on the ground, the officers “ripped off” both of the girls’ hijabs.

In an attempt to come to the girls’ aid, their brother and a young college student, who tried to film the incident, were also violently detained.

A police source said that the children were “acting disorderly” as they left the park and that the college student grabbed one of the girls from the “escorting” officers.

Regardless of the truth of that account, the fact that the officers removed the hijabs proves problematic for the NYPD. First, it leads one to question underlying intent of the officers for targeting these young girls. Second, the officers’ unconsented removal of the girls’ religious attire is an assault on the girls’ religious expression, and the vehement acts may be a violation of the girls’ First Amendment rights to both free speech and free exercise of religion.

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Obama at the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

August 29, 2013 by Ruthann Robson

In his speech commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, President Obama stated:

“Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes.”

“woman carrying laundry home along highway between Durham and Mebane, North Carolina” photo by Marion Post Wolcott, circa 1939, Library of Congress

The care of other people’s attire has been the province of low-wage workers throughout US history, as the chapter “dressing economically” addresses.

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“Littering Case” Becomes Bomb Scare for Man in “Middle Eastern Garb”

August 29, 2013 by Brett Dolin

In a case described as “littering while Muslim,” Boston police arrested Amar Ibrahim last Thursday, charging him with littering, as well as disorderly conduct and interference with public transportation, a felony. Ibrahim, after finishing his chocolate milk, tossed the bottle onto the ground, where it landed underneath the No. 66 bus of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. At the time, Ibrahim was described as wearing a thobe, a “common article of clothing for men in some parts of the Middle East,” and head covering.

Meanwhile, aboard the No. 66, a bomb scare ensued. As reported, Boston Police Superintendent-in-Chief Daniel Linskey said the bus driver became alarmed when a man in “Middle Eastern garb” “bent down and appeared to be placing a black object underneath the bus as if attaching some type of device….” The bus was evacuated, Mr. Ibrahim was arrested, and a police bomb squad later discovered the plastic bottle.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for the charges to be dropped, with spokesman Ibrahim Hooper reportedly saying, “I think you could obviously make the case that it would have been a different reaction, had he not been dressed in quote, ‘Middle Eastern garb.’” Ibrahim’s lawyer, Charles Pappas, reportedly described the situation as a “littering case” and said the rest of the charges had been “blown out of proportion.”

While Mr. Ibrahim was eventually released with no bail (after a night in jail), he still faces felony and misdemeanor charges for a littering violation punishable by a fine (and probably not a night in jail). Of course, one can imagine a more likely punishment for tossing a milk bottle while not in “Middle Eastern garb:” a disapproving glance and no bomb scare.

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Retailer Removes Feathered Headdress After Customer Complaints

August 22, 2013 by Kara Wallis

This month, popular clothing retailer H&M removed faux feather headdresses from their shelves in Canada. As reported, a spokesperson for H&M said three customers complained that the headdresses were culturally insensitive, prompting the company to remove the product.

One H&M customer explained her complaint to reporters: “Headdresses are a sign of respect and leadership … You wouldn’t find a colorful hijab or a colorful yarmulke on the shelves as some sort of fashion accessory to wear out to a nightclub or to a music festival.”

Online reaction to the news has varied — some see the accessory as a harmless nod to aboriginal culture, while others rebuke H&M as cheapening the First Nations’ heritage in order to make a quick buck, essentially profiting off a people’s history and traditions by turning them into an aesthetic movement.

H&M is not the only company to receive negative press over offensive appropriation of indigenous peoples’ culture. In the last two years, several large retailers, including Victoria Secret and Forever 21, have elicited outrage over insensitive use and mockery of Native American traditions and symbols.

In 2011, the Navajo Nation brought legal action against retail giant Urban Outfitters for the use of “Navajo” to sell its products, or as Sasha Houston Brown of the Santee Sioux Nation wrote, a “mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor.” Brown and the Navajo Nation argued that items like the “Navajo Hipster Panty” were trademark infringement and violate the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which prohibits one from falsely representing an item as made by Native Americans.

Given the popularity of the trend and a long history of exploitation of indigenous cultures and histories, it is unlikely that H&M will be the last to receive the charge of cultural insensitivity. But perhaps there is recourse through the legal system in addition to publicly shaming such companies for their serious fashion faux pas.

[images via 1 and 2]