A few months ago, someone scrawled this provocative message on the wall of a girls’ bathroom stall at a high school in Corona: “I can get sent home for a tank top, but a guy can sexually assault me on campus and nothing happens.”
I wasn’t surprised when my daughter, a high school sophomore, showed me a photo of the note. For months, I’d been hearing how she and her female friends felt vulnerable to the whims of school staff inspecting and commenting on their clothing and bodies as they enforced the dress code every day. Meanwhile, my older son and his male friends breezed through four years of high school without feeling overly scrutinized by school officials.
As it turns out, students at other schools nationwide have similar experiences. An investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office late last year revealed that many school dress codes have created unsafe and inequitable conditions, possibly violating students’ civil rights that guarantee equal treatment. And the Supreme Court is considering weighing in on a 2019 ruling in the 4th Circuit Court striking down a North Carolina charter school’s requirement that girls must wear skirts or dresses. Students at the school say the requirement is discriminatory and conveys the message that girls are inferior to boys.
