Dress Code: Gender Equality’s Biggest Enemy

As a 17 year old in a expeditionary learning high school senior I have always hated dress code, much like every other high school student. For the past four years I have been obligated to abide by dress code policies. To me, those policies did nothing but limit my individuality, and freedoms of expression. Up until I was researching for this article, I believed that they didn’t help me or anyone else, I mean try wearing full length jeans and sneakers or flats in one of the New York extremely hot spring/summer days, not fun trust me. I am aware that dress code and uniforms are different but in a way they both have some type of limitation to student’s individuality. But as much as I would like to speak about how much dress code limit a student’s rights given by the First Amendment in the U.S Constitution, there are some obvious facts that are beneficial to not only other students but also for the school staff. Dress codes limit students from wearing disrespectful attires, they try to prevent any gang related problems due to showcasing, and they avoid Power struggles due to financial status’ of students, and Decreases materialism and social competition.

But dress code is not all sunshine and rainbows sadly. As I mentioned earlier dress code limits student’s rights given by the First Amendment. In the Supreme Court’s case Tinker v. De Moines the court ruled against the school because they were violating the student’s First Amendment. According to Oureverydaylife.com In a study comparing data between dress code obligated schools and non dress code obligated school, the non dress code schools seems to have higher reading and math skills. All in all what I am trying to say is that although dress might seem like a pain they also have positive outcomes not only for us as students, but also for our school environment.