In 1969, the US Supreme Court ruled that when it comes to school dress codes, “Students don’t shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates.” But the struggle between school administrators’ policies and students’ individuality continues.
Students and parents are pushing back against dress codes that disproportionately affect female students, who are often told that their manner of dress is too distracting to boys and miss class time to face disciplinary action.
Here are nine outfits that schools said violated their dress codes – and how the students wearing them responded.
Mallory Johnston was suspended when she broke her school’s dress code, which bans visible bra straps, in protest.
Mallory Johnston and Grace Wood, students at Essex District High School in Essex, Ontario, protested their school’s policy of suspending girls whose bra straps were showing.
Both students encouraged others to dress the way they wanted. Johnston hung posters up around the school with messages like, "Stop objectifying women," which were swiftly taken down by the vice principal. She was then suspended for breaking the dress code in protest.
Mike Hawkins, the school's principal, told the CBC that "anyone needs approval to post anything around the school."
Johnston stood by her demonstrations.
"I spoke out because it was very degrading to keep getting pulled out of my education for something so silly. I knew going forward with this would get backlash, but it was a risk I was willing to take because I believe that something should be changed," she said. "I believe in equality and women's rights. I should be able to speak my opinion without being disciplined."
A 17-year-old said she was told to put Band-Aids on her breasts while wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt after school officials said her nipples were distracting male students.
Lizzy Martinez, a junior at Braden River High School in Bradenton, Florida, went to school wearing a long-sleeved gray T-shirt without a bra because she didn't want straps to irritate a bad sunburn. She said she was then pulled out of class for distracting male students when a boy laughed and told his friends that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"I decided not to wear a bra today and got pulled out of class [because] one of my teachers complained that it was a 'distraction to boys in my class,'" she wrote on Twitter. "My school basically told me that boys' education is far more important than mine and I should be ashamed of my body."
Braden River High School issued a statement in response saying that Martinez violated the district's Code of Student Conduct, which prohibits students from wearing attire that distracts others.
"It is undisputed that this matter should have been handled differently at the school level," Mitchell Teitelbaum, general counsel for the School District of Manatee County, previously wrote to INSIDER in a statement. "Corrective measures have been taken to prevent a recurrence in the way these matters will be addressed in the future."
A high school senior was told to retake her yearbook picture because she wore a sweater that exposed her shoulders — but she started a petition instead.
Maine South High School senior Grace Goble wore an off-the-shoulder top for her yearbook photo and was told she would have to retake the photo because she had violated the dress code.
She started a petition called "Maine South High School: end the over-sexualization of young women's bodies" on Change.org in response.
Her school principal then told her that she wouldn't have to retake her photo and asked her to be on a team of students who would revise the dress code.
"I was pleasantly surprised [by] how willing my principal was to take actions and hear my thoughts. He's new to the school this year, so I had only briefly met him before this," she previously told INSIDER. "I'm proud that I was able to make a change, even if it was just at my school. I hope that others see the power of an individual standing up for what they believe in and do the same."
A teen was reportedly told she violated her high school's dress code by being "busty" and "plus size" while wearing a blouse and jeans.
Kelsey Anderson, 17, was wearing a red blouse and jeans when she was reportedly told to leave class after her teacher said she violated her school's dress code by being "busty" and "plus size."
"I was mortified by my teacher, of all people, saying something like this in front of my class," Anderson said in a press release provided to INSIDER by her and her mother's attorney.
Anderson and her mother are seeking legal action to prevent other students from being body-shamed.
Joplin High School did not respond to INSIDER's request for comment.
A teen said she was taken out of class twice for breaking her school's dress code by wearing the wrong type of crew-neck T-shirt.
Tori Taylor, a senior at Dickson County High School, said that she was told to leave class twice because of shirts she was wearing.
The school's dress code states that "All students must wear a collared and/or crew neck top with sleeves," but Taylor was told "it wasn't the right cut of a crew neck top," according to News Channel 5.
The school released a statement to Yahoo Style saying that, "The purpose of our dress code is to assure students will dress and groom in a clean, neat, and modest manner in order not to distract or interfere with the educational environment of the school. For the most part, 99% of our students have come to school within our dress code guidelines."
A middle school student wearing ripped jeans was allegedly forced to put duct tape on her bare legs for violating her school's dress code.
A seventh-grader at Benjamin Stoddert Middle School told Fox 5 DC that school officials made her cover her ripped jeans, which violated the dress code, with duct tape. The student told her mother that the tape was burning her skin, but her mother said the school didn't contact her to tell her to bring a change of clothes.
The school's interim principal, Marvin Jones, apologized for the incident.
"Our practice is to communicate with the parent before a student covers the holes with tape; however, that protocol was not followed today, and I apologize for that," he said in a statement, also promising to review the proper dress code violation procedures with staff.
A 17-year-old student wore a long-sleeved, striped T-shirt dress to school and was reportedly told to call her mother to bring a change of clothes.
The vice principal at Tom C. Clark High School in San Antonio, Texas, reportedly told 17-year-old Sophia Abuabara to call her mother to bring a change of clothes because her T-shirt dress violated the school's dress code, which requires no more than four inches between the end of a dress and knees.
When her mother, Rosey Abuabara, arrived, she had a conversation with the principal that ended with her getting escorted off campus - though Sophia was allowed to stay at school.
"What is more important here? My daughter's skirt length, or her PHYSICS AP TEST SCORE?" Abuabara captioned a photo of her daughter wearing the outfit in question on Facebook. "She also had an [Advanced Placement US history] test, and a LATIN 3 test, back to back. Don't understand how this is a dress code violation. She's 5'9". It's hard to find anything that fits longer."
High school senior Tori DiPaolo called out her school's sexist dress code in her yearbook quote.
Victoria DiPaolo used her yearbook photo to share some choice words about her high school's dress code, which she said penalizes female students more often than male students.
For senior portraits, female students wear black, off-the-shoulder tops, so she captioned the photo, "I'm sorry, did my shoulders distract you from reading this quote?"
"Over the past four years, myself and many of my friends have received dress code violations for clothes that were nowhere near inappropriate," she told Yahoo Style. "I became a bit infamous around school for fighting the administration about dress code, so I figured I'd use my senior quote as one final jab."
She also told the outlet that both teachers and students loved the quote.
A 16-year-old girl said she was reprimanded for wearing leggings and a T-shirt to school.
Kate Wilson, a student at Honesdale High School in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, said her vice principal called her outfit of a baggy T-shirt and leggings "inappropriate.
"I was told that my pants were making the teachers uncomfortable, and my vice principal made a point of how distracting it was to see me walk up stairs," Wilson told INSIDER.
According to the Honesdale High School's student handbook, the dress code states that "Female students will not be permitted to wear skin tight clothing, objectionable form fitting blouses, or short tops to expose a bare midriff," but does not specifically address leggings.
Wilson wrote a Facebook post from the nurse's office about her experience. The post quickly went viral.
"Today, I was told that the discomfort of a middle aged man who seemingly can't keep his eyes off of a sixteen year old's rear end takes precedence over my education," she wrote. "I was called disrespectful for defending myself. The only disrespect that occurred in that office was the blatant disrespect of my rights over my body, my education, and my rights as a human being."
A representative for Honesdale High School didn't immediately return INSIDER's request for comment.
Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.