New dress code begins
January 4, 2023
By Belen Suazo
The very first dress code law was acknowledged in 1969 by the U.S Supreme Court, due to the ‘Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent School District’ case. This case dealt with students protesting the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands. In the end, what students wore to school was taken into consideration more than ever. Today, schools try to promote safety or uniformity by setting rules for the students to follow. Some may say these rules are pointless, and they limit students on what they can and cannot wear to express themselves while others only enforce it.
This year at Granger High School, the dress code sets apart other schools that use the dress code from Granite District. The code consists of top straps going over the shoulders and belly button. The bottoms covering the waist to the middle of the thigh. Also, hats and beanies aren’t permitted inside the building unless they are Granger gear.
Many students like Giovanni Mikkelsen (10) think that the no hats rule shouldn’t be a thing. “Sometimes people just have a bad hair day and want to wear a hat,” Mikkelsen said.
Mr. Demoux, a student advocate, says that rather calling it a dress code, it should be called a dress standard. He thinks a dressing standard is dressing up to what is expected from the school. “I think the reason why we enforce it is to prevent chaos,” Demoux said. “I only have to dress code someone a couple of times a week.”
Students who get dress coded during passing time could be late arriving to class. Demoux says that if this happens, the student gets a pass to class. To avoid this happening overall he advises all students to dress to the standard.
Dress code can become a controversial topic because students and staff always have a mix of opinions.
“I think dress code in general can be very demeaning,” Eboni Robinson (10) said. She thinks these rules are very constricting, especially for female students. Robinson feels that female Lancers are too afraid to wear the clothes they have because of dress code. This results in overthinking the outfits they wear. Robinson has been stopped fifteen times this year because of the clothes she was wearing. “I’d say this has made me late to class multiple times,” Robinson said. Although administrators hand out hall passes, she still thinks she’s missing too much time that could be spent learning in her classes.
Schools all around have different sets of rules for their dress policies. While some dislike these rules, others implement them.