Although dress codes implies that they merely regulate the clothes that students can wear, we found that 77% of schools policies specifically prohibit the visibility of certain body parts…Policies like these have recently come under scrutiny due to the sexual tone they communicate. At best, students receive the message that those body parts are bad, should be hidden, or are important to others. At worst, dress codes go so far as to turn whole people into a collection of inappropriate body parts to cover.
As someone who was active in various aspects of student government and had visibility into the administrative functions of education, I agree that this is a subject that can be better addressed in schools. At the end of her article, Amber links to a Model Student Dress Code developed by the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women that I liked and would suggest to any administrator who is reviewing or updating their school’s dress code.