Schools say dress codes promote discipline, but many Black students see traces of racism
Schools say dress codes promote discipline, but many Black students see traces of racism
To school administrators, strict dress codes can be tools for promoting uniformity and discipline. In recent years, schools have faced pressure to reconsider their policies.
For as long as schools have policed hairstyles as part of their dress codes, some students have seen the rules as attempts to deny their cultural and religious identities.
Nowhere have school rules on hair been a bigger flashpoint than in Texas, where a trial this week is set to determine whether high school administrators can continue punishing a Black teenager for refusing to cut his hair. The 18-year-old student, Darryl George, who wears his hair in locs tied atop his head, has been kept out of his classroom since the start of the school year.
To school administrators, strict dress codes can be tools for promoting uniformity and discipline. But advocates say the codes disproportionately affect students of color and the punishments disrupt learning. Under pressure, many schools in Texas have removed boys-only hair length rules, while hundreds of districts maintain hair restrictions written into their dress codes.
Schools that enforce strict dress codes have higher rates of punishment that take students away from learning, such as suspensions and expulsions, according to an October 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office. The report called on the U.S. Department of Education to provide resources to help schools design more equitable dress codes.
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The title talks about dress codes, but the article focuses almost exclusively on hair.
to the school there is no difference.
Every single dress code I've been under has included hair.
Edit: I should add, some have been more restrictive than others. Back in high school, it was pretty restrictive. No unnatural dyes, stuff like that. I've also been under ones that essentially boil down to "just don't look like a complete mess man".
My current employee has a dress code that basically boils down to 'dress professionally, no jeans' for everyone without any mention of hairstyles. The dress code it replaced about a decade ago had everything including hairstyles defined by gender roles.
Every dress code I have had at schools or employers included hairstyle rules.
Your employer sucks. We wear what we want when we aren't meeting clients.
That is the in office dress code, and is pretty lax for a state agency. Honestly it is pretty reasonable, I mean slacks and a polo is perfectly fine.
I also get to work from home and it doesn't matter what I wear there.
Agreed. Mine is like “if you’re being forced into the office for some raisin, wear anything” so I’m free to Opeth+jeans it up.
I've never understood why dress codes beyond "Just don't look like a slob" exist for non client facing jobs.
The same reason why Faux News ladies all have straight blonde hair. Makes some old pervert there happy to see the young ones dressed a certain way.
Why I’ll never have straight blonde hair hahaha
Yeah, they’re usually part of dress code. Like at my work for instance, it’s part of the dress code to not show any signs of growing facial hair. You can either be clean shaven or have a full beard, but no inbetween.
Gotta grow that beard on vacation!
Pretty much! Either that or wear a face mask until the beard looks grown out enough 🤷
Or be a knuckle dragging neanderthal like me and push out a full beard over the weekend at 16.
So if you ever shave you're stuck with clean shave forever? What's the cutoff for "full beard"?
For the shaven part, pretty much - you can’t have growing hairs period, so it’s either staying clean shaven or wearing a face mask if you want to grow a beard.
As for the full beard… I never been able to figure it out, but my rather scraggly looking goatee seems to be ok.