Baker Mitchell, founder of the Roger Bacon Academy, which runs Charter Day School [in North Carolina]... explained in an email that the dress code, along with other policies, were meant to “preserve chivalry and respect among young women and men.” He cited societal concerns such as “teen pregnancies” and “casual sex” for the need to create a learning environment that “embodied traditional values.”...It is hard to see how requiring girls to wear skirts constrains sexual expression. It constrains all sorts of physical activities other than sex. It really facilitates sex, especially if sex includes looking up a girl's skirt and — to use the presidential locution — grabbing her by the pussy.
According to the decision, the skirt requirement forced girls to “pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning, and has led them to avoid certain activities altogether, such as climbing or playing sports during recess, all for fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers or teased by boys.”
The school had defended its policy, saying it was based on “traditional values” and “is in place to instill discipline and keep order,” Howard summarized in his decision. “They argue that taking away the ‘visual cues’ of the skirts requirement would hinder respect between the two sexes.”...
“Defendants have shown no connection between these stated goals and the requirement that girls wear skirts,” [U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard] wrote.
My schoolgirl days were spent entirely in skirts. It was required, and then we were sent to the vice principal's office for wearing the wrong length skirt. Especially me. I vividly remember sitting through the vice principal's lecture about the sexual suffering of boys when they were subjected to the presence of a girl in a miniskirt. I felt like he was sexually harassing me by talking about sex so intensely. He was making it sexual, imposing man-mind on me, when I, required to wear a skirt, simply insisted on wearing the skirt that was in fashion. Let me wear pants, and your sex problem is gone. Unless it's not. You dirty old man.
Now... that's enough 1966. Back to the present. The most interesting part of the North Carolina dispute is defending it in the name of chivalry. Chivalry is (to pick the most apt definition in the OED) "The brave, honourable, and courteous character attributed to the ideal knight; disinterested bravery, honour, and courtesy; chivalrousness." Wouldn't it be great if there were the choice to send your son to a charter school where they shaped him into a brave, honorable, courteous, ideal knight? But if it's a co-ed school, what are they offering the girls? I'd say having male classmates who are expected to behave like ideal knights is itself a great offer, but I assume the girls too would be called to bravery, honor, and courteousness.
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154 comments:
Funny. Today you are only sent to the principal’s for murder, after two previous offenses.
I started out by rolling my eyes and thinking, “here we go again...” But in the end, I agree with the judge.
There’s nothing wrong with dress codes and there’s nothing wrong with those codes being different for men and women, BUT they have to be practical. If the girl’s dress code forces them to wear something that interferes with participation in school activities, then that’s a problem. It’s discrimination.
This country has a lot of judges that need to be culled from the herd. How has this country gotten so stupid?
Dress codes are fairly arbitrary.
The lawyers who appear in front of this judge don’t have a first amendment right to show up in cutoffs and flip flops because of traditional notions.
If traditional notions of what is masculine or feminine are quaint and outdated, all dress codes are outdated. They all violate free expression.
But this judge doesn’t want litigants and lawyers showing up like that.
He gets to keep his arbitrary rules. They work for him.
This shit builds character...in the way suffering sometimes does.
I figured we’d all be in silver zip up jumpers the way past looks at the future predicted. Erin Gray in a zip up jumper was quite distracting. Maybe that was the problem...
Don't parents have the power to overrule the protections offered by the constitution? I have never liked Tinker. Parents of the students should be the ones setting the standards, not a judge that somehow has given themselves power to govern, and denied that power from the people.
This is in regards to minors, under their parents direct control, via govt officials under our rules of representative government. The people have an inalienable right to self determination.
According to the decision, the skirt requirement forced girls to “pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning, and has led them to avoid certain activities altogether, such as climbing or playing sports during recess, all for fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers or teased by boys.”
Please, aren't there multitudinous shorts, leggings and other garments that could be worn under a knee length skit?
My parochial school uniform was a plaid, pleated skirt! Even as a normal weight kid, I felt like a whale and it was uncomfortable. On gym days we girls could wear short under our skirts. This was even more uncomfortable and impractical. We also had the conflicts over skirt length. It would have been so much more comfortable and practical to wear nice slacks. This was the 60s. When I first worked in business and then as an attorney, I always wore a skirted suit. Now, the only time I get dressed up (in pants and a jacket) is when I go to court or have a client meeting. Times have changed. I think females of all ages can look neat and well dressed wearing nice slacks.
Isn't attending a charter school voluntary? Don't they know the rules going in?
Hey, I have an idea. I'll move into a planned community and paint my house pink. And then sue when the hammer comes down.
Let me suggest the common denominator to our problems in this country rests with two words: Federal Judge.
(Whoops - three times)
I see Paris
I see France....
requiring girls (and not boys) to wear skirts
I almost expected to find equal protection by requiring boys to wear skirts.
The boys should have been made to wear kilts.
Also preserving of chivalry
Don't Federal judges have anything better to do?
I have an idea. Why don't you all go on vacation for awhile.
Who's the asshole that made a Federal case out of her daughter's school dress code?
I hope the school kicked her out.
"Let me wear pants, and your sex problem is gone. "
No it's not. The next best thing to a short skirt is a pair of tight jeans. Keep in mind that guys at that age are walking around with half a hard on already.
So I am to believe a modish teenaged girl of 1966 was absolutely naive at what effect a mini skirt had on the libidos of young men or at least the attention it engendered from same young men. Sure! /S
A double win: you get to drive men crazy and you get to hold them in contempt for the very reaction you sought to take advantage of.
For a lady who quibbles about distinctions of words and who parses phrasings as close to the bone as you do, you seem blatantly willfully blind about the distinction between a full, knee length skirt and a posterior gripping, upper thigh revealing mini-skirt.
But to acknowledge that would be to admit THE MAN had a point and you were not correct.
You have been holding this reality defying grudge for longer than I have been alive. Just saying.
Girls dress up in their blue field hockey uniforms for activities other than sex.
When we start allowing questions like this to be litigated and settled by a judge, don't be surprised when every aspect of life ends up in a courtroom. Sometimes a judge should say "Go solve your problem, if there is one, without me." But judges, like litigants, think the judicial system should insinuate itself into every corner of our existence.
The school's systemic racism suggests a skirt-related problem.
I’d call their bluff.
Kilts anyone?
If the school made boys wear the skirts, the judge would be all for it.
Anachronistic is the word I would choose. I attended Catholic parochial school from first through eight grade (through 1970). Girls were required to wear a specific plaid patterned skirt, knee socks, light blue blouse, and a little tie (not a bow tie, just a little crossed thing). Boys wore navy blue slacks, light blue shirt, and a dark blue neck tie with school emblem (clip-on!). As I recall the skirts were required to be knee length or longer. The problem of boys looking up skirts was solved or prevented by vigilant oversight by the teachers, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and by the fact that recess was a segregated affair. Girls and boys shared the classroom but every other activity was segregated by gender.
These customs and rules did nothing to instill chivalry in the boys, and there wasn't any sex going on among the students (as far as i know). Other than the clothing and hair styles the boys and girls were physically similar.
The school might better achieve the stated personal conduct and character goals by transitioning to single gender education.
Chivalry often gets narrowed down to "men being nice to women," but chivalry was about a lot more than that in the idealized version, such as a specific way of showing respect for the elderly and children as well. Part of it is that the courtly romances help define chivalry to the modern audience, but chivalry is so much more than that.
In some ways, Chivalry's strong ties to the feudal system, makes it not exactly a great moral or ethical code. How strongly tied it is to things like "making war against the infidel," and to blindly follow the Church's commandments, make it in fact, perhaps too confining. But, as far as I can tell, making women wear skirts doesn't really fall into the concept of chivalry.
Do Charter Schools have PTA?
Was there any consultation?
Did Any Moms come wearing panties and pants? ( I'm embracing power of and )
It’s a charter school. If a parent (such as myself) doesn’t like the dress code, you don’t send your kids there. I don’t have a problem with parents choosing differently. Neither should the law. If the school is funded by the number of students enrolled, the crazier the policy, the fewer kids, until they don’t have the funds to keep the school open. Supply and demand and the market will correct (rewarding reasonable policies that satisfy parents) without the government’s monopoly on force.
From the Yelp review: "They are pushing conservative Christian values in kids"
That explains it. Parents choose to send their kids there. Take it or leave it.
It is hard to see how requiring girls to wear skirts constrains sexual expression. It constrains all sorts of physical activities other than sex
There was an exception for phys ed classes. But your opinion is beside the point. Charter schools are voluntary choices. The whole idea is to provide options that aren't available in the default public school. If a parent doesn't like the policy, don't choose that school.
pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning, and has led them to avoid certain activities altogether, such as climbing or playing sports during recess, all for fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers or teased by boys.”
I call Bullshit. There is such a thing as "privacy shorts". My daughters go to a private school and their required uniform is a jumper or skirt, as well as the required privacy shorts.
Lift up the skirt all you want and it's just a pair of shorts. Jump around all you want.
The uniform has nothing to do with clothing. It has to do with standards. If you can't as a school assert standards in little things you won't be able to assert the standards in the big things (such as grades).
"The lawyers who appear in front of this judge don’t have a first amendment right to show up in cutoffs and flip flops because of traditional notions. "
-- Is that a fair comparison? I'm sure the courts don't mind women showing up in professional pants suits. I don't think the judge would have thought it was wrong for the school to enforce a dress code that said "no swimwear" or whatever you call "professional" for kids.
Everyone should be on the same page.
If the girl’s dress code forces them to wear something that interferes with participation in school activities, then that’s a problem. It’s discrimination.
Given that there was an exception for phys ed classes, what activities did the dress code interfere with? Doing handstands in math class?
My daughter's school (catholic) and my granddaughters school (sda) both require girls to wear jumpers to 8th grade and skirts wit vest 9-12. Plaid with different schools having different colors.
Boys wear black slacks and white polos with schoolname/emblem.
Public schools wear uniforms too. Skirts/jumpers are common but not required.
Girls solve the problem by wearing shorts under the skirts. Generally spandex.
The horror! The horror!
As a parent I generally favor the idea of uniforms. It simplifies a lot of things including what to wear in the morning, competition between kids over clothes, income differences and more.
John Henry
The lawyers who appear in front of this judge don’t have a first amendment right to show up in cutoffs and flip flops because of traditional notions
Wouldn't it have been great if the lawyer for the school showed up in sandals and risked a contempt citation? But your Honor, it hurts my feet to wear closed toe shoes!
Maybe it will happen at the appellate level, where they have even tougher standards (time limit? But your Honor, I need time to form my argument!).
This country has a lot of judges that need to be culled from the herd. How has this country gotten so stupid?
One dullard after another.
Minors should not have equal rights. In fact, they should have no rights. And the fed govt should have no say regarding local education rules.
I'm grateful that I went to an all-male high school. It sucked at the time, but I was distracted enough just thinking about girls I'd see after school, if they were there with me, I wouldn't have gotten anything done. As for skirts, I can say that when the girls from the local all-girls high school used our fields for Field Hockey practice, the entire student body was glued to the windows.
So it would be OK with the judge so long as boys had to wear skirts, too? Well of course, it’s right there in the “skirts clause” of the Bill of Rights.
When my daughters and my granddaughters went to school in the early grades they all wore shorts under their skirts.
I have not seen anything banning such simple matters and I assume sanity is still present in North Carolina,
You got sent to the VP for short skirts - we got sent for long hair. The rule was: two fingers above the eyebrows, two fingers above the collar and not touching the ears. The offer was two days suspension or two swats for each day you broke the no long hair rule. I would have taken, nay wished for, glorified in a man to man talk about how my long locks were enticing the females and sending them a-twitter in the halls of acadameia. Sigh. Long hair on the boys and short skirts on the girls. It was war against school authority - American style.
I am old enough to remember when girls were not supposed to wear pants to school. I hated it! My mom made most of our clothes and it was OK in the summer to wear shorts and go barefoot but for school I had to wear dresses (and uncomfortable, slippery dress shoes like Mary Janes). Living in South Dakota meant in the winter a lot of girls wore pants under their skirts to stay warm on the walk to school and them took them off when they arrived.
It was such a relief for six or seven year old me when mom made me some culottes and let me wear tennis shoes with them!
I thought schools should be run by educators, not lawyers with political pull who become judges. Crazy me.
There was no problem for my two girls when they wore skirts at their Catholic co-ed grade school. And, of course, they loved their plaid skirts at their all girls high school.
And, Ann, you in a mini-skirt in high school probably knocked 50 SAT points off the boys' scores. Let's ask your high school boy classmates what they thought of Althouse in a mini skirt.
And how does this case end up in federal court? How much money was spent?
I have not had children in public school for years and where I live we don't have charter schools but isn't attendance at a charter completely voluntary? I would assume one of the reasons parents would send their children to a charter school is because of its program, which might include dress codes or even uniforms. I think this whole issue is ridiculous. If you don't like the dress code or the program then go to a different school. The parents who perhaps sent their children to this school because of the program, which might include dress codes for boys and girls, are being denied what they sent their child there to experience just because a few are unhappy.
I might say also that I am continually surprised, and sometimes appalled, at what I see students wearing to school these days, particularly in high school, and that includes my local community, which is pretty conservative. The real world of work has expectations and in order to succeed in the future children should be learning the expectations for appearance and behavior. That seems to be missing in a lot of schools today.
I think the real story here is not dress codes. It's the so called "Equal Protection Clause".
It sounds romantic, noble, and just. Applied, it's a catch-all to enforce Marxism, and puts individualism outside the protection of the Constitution. Toss in other summary clauses while we're at it--General Welfare, Necessary and Proper, etc.
Eh, BS. I drive by schools when they are on recess and the kids are just standing around in their little cliques yakking with each other...whatever..
"The lawyers who appear in front of this judge don’t have a first amendment right to show up in cutoffs and flip flops because of traditional notions."
Nebraska federal judge Richard Kopf used to have a great blog. One time he wrote that the female lawyers who appeared in front of him needed to tone their dress; too many low cut items. He got all sorts of grief.
If you want a dress code, have two kinds of uniforms, and let the individual choose.
I would also require the wearing of red caps just to annoy people.
My school required girls to wear blue skirts and blue or white tops (school colors). Boys wore sport coats on Fridays (7th grade and above). Some teachers tried to make sport coats and ties mandatory every day. Jean and gym shoes were not allowed.
My sense is that we were serious students because we dressed more formally. I carried that tradition to my career. When business casual became big in the 1990's I wore Brooks Brothers sport coats, shirts, ties and slacks. I felt more professional that way. I assume my clients felt the same. Of course, some businesses (e.g., in the financial industry) required suits because their clients expected them to be professional in handling their money.
That same school abandoned its dress code about 40 years ago. Everyone wears jeans. They just don't look serious to me.
and then we were sent to the vice principal's office for wearing the wrong length skirt
Ah, yes. I remember the girls at my high school suffering similar punishments.
They were reprimanded [and usually sent home] for wearing anything approaching a mini-skirt; and I recall one young woman punished for showing up in a granny-skirt. Also distracting, I suppose, though in a different way.
I do agree with the judge in this case, but I'm still annoyed that parents who knew about the dress code and, apparently -- even if tacitly -- agreed with it, still brought suit against it. Assuming that that's the case here.
Well, if I showed up in court to argue my case (or for my client) and was wearing only a loin cloth, would the judge feel the same way? I doubt it.
My younger daughter wore a school uniform but it involved pants. Of course girls wore skirts and dresses when I went to school and, like Althouse, had to conform to skirt length requirements. Pants are more practical, IMO, and so are school uniforms that eliminate the distraction of fashion and sexuality.
The Scottish kilt could settle this dispute, as long as the charter school has no different rule for boys and girls on going commando.
the dress code, along with other policies, were meant to “preserve chivalry and respect among young women and men.”
Clearly these administrators have never watched Japanese Anime.
Does this decision mean judges don't have to wear pants under their robes?
At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw [Judge] Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as a penis pump during at least four trials in the same period.
Thompson, 59, was convicted last month of four felony courts of indecent exposure for incidents that took place in his Creek County courtroom.
Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy.
"It wasn't something I was hiding," he said.
He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate.
Charter schools are voluntary choices.
Charter schools may offer academic or course-of-study options that a parent may want for their child and that isn't available elsewhere.
I googled to find the school's actual charter -- the legal charter by which they operate as a public school -- but couldn't find one.
This is my all time favorite female school uniform.
My high school had no real dress code in the early 80s, but that didn't stop me from admiring Druscilla Setzer's jeans on a near continuous basis for 4 years.
THey should have argued that the girls have a constitutional right to cock teasing. It's in the unenumerated clause in the penumbras, behind the emanations, close to the wellsprings. You can hear Justice Kennedy whistling Sweet Mystery of Life. If you get to the people's right to know clause, you have gone too far.
"Girls were forced to wear skirts at school to ‘preserve chivalry.’ So they sued — and won."
Well, "the girls" didn't sue, their parents and the ACLU did in their names.
I get the impression from the article that the litigants aren't the sorts who are going to stop with pants, either. There's a strong air of "California syndrome" going on here. Like California progs fleeing their state only to enthusiastically impose the failed policies they escaped on their new home, they're going to send their kids to the charter school (why not the regular public school, where they can get all the "equality" they want?), and then put a lot of energy (packing school boards, suing about everything) into stamping out any traces of "traditionalism", until the school is just like the regular public school that they don't want to send their kids to. (Good sport to predict whom they're going to blame when the inevitable results. Not themselves.)
Some commenters were a-titter at the implication that wearing skirts prevented teen pregnancy. Certainly literally true, but one notes, contra Althouse, that there is also no evidence that wearing pants "de-facilitiates" sexual activity (consensual or not) to any meaningful degree, judging from comparative teen pregnancy, sexual activity, or sexual assault rates.
I'd stick with the straightforward, persuasive "girls shouldn't have to wear less practical and less comfortable clothes than boys" argument. Banging on about ancillary grievances confirms that it's not about the skirts, but the same tired prog agenda.
Wouldn't it be great if there were the choice to send your son to a charter school where they shaped him into a brave, honorable, courteous, ideal knight? But if it's a co-ed school, what are they offering the girls? I'd say having male classmates who are expected to behave like ideal knights is itself a great offer, but I assume the girls too would be called to bravery, honor, and courteousness.
Well, good luck with inculcating and maintaining high chivalric standards while at the same time enforcing a strictly sex-neutral, egalitarian ethos. Traditional chivalric standards recognized sex differences and did not despise masculinity. Get rid of all the aspects that appeal to men *as men*, and you destroy its appeal to them. They won't want to play, Althouse, no matter how much you scold them about how they *should*, because equality...
(cont'd)
(cont'd)
But if it's a co-ed school, what are they offering the girls? I'd say having male classmates who are expected to behave like ideal knights is itself a great offer, but I assume the girls too would be called to bravery, honor, and courteousness.
It's a strawman that the non-sex-neutral "chivalric" code, still extant in our parents' (or grandparents' or great-grandparents' day, for the whippersnappers among us), held out no aspirational ideal for girls beyond being a simpering git. Being a weakling, a coward, a liar, or a jerk was no more acceptable in women than it was in men. That men were required to demonstrate their courage in ways not expected of women (e.g., fighting) was common sense, not a condoning of cowardice in women, or a condoning of the lack of other virtues in them.
The "code" for both sexes over-lapped a great deal. It sensibly acknowledged meaningful sex differences, and understood that not acknowledging any differences didn't bring out the best in either sex. The code was an ideal, of course. But rather more realistic, workable, and humane than crazy sex-neutral ideologies.
P.S.: I've got nothing against girls wearing pants, but I don't recall the skirts of my schooldays distracting me from learning, or, for that matter, suffering from any of the other alleged limitations at recess.
Women can wear everything a man can wear, and skirts! How is that even fair?! Female privilege! Men will never break through the Steel Ceiling at this rate.
Matthew,
It is a fair comparison.
Who is the judge to say no swimsuits or any dress code in His Courtroom?
He’s a federal judge, an employee of the federal government paid for by tax dollars. Under the first amendment he can’t constrain free expression, which includes clothing choice. Lawyers can wear Fuck the Draft shirts in his courtroom.
Lawyers and litigants aren’t visiting his house.
But many judges are just arrogant jagoffs. They get to tell others how to run their workplaces but don’t want to abide by the same rules.
Dress codes, for the most part, are arbitrary. If the Judge has a right to impose one consistent with the first amendment then so do Schools. If schools want to require skirts for girls and pants for boys, so be it. That arbitrary dress code requirement has a long tradition.
People who shit on traditions every day then turn around and complain about Trump. “He’s Violating Norms and Customs.”
Unbelievable hypocrisy.
You dirty old man.
I resemble that remark.
"It is hard to see how requiring girls to wear skirts constrains sexual expression. It constrains all sorts of physical activities other than sex"
Yes, and this is the unstated aspect of this clothing. How can a woman walk or run when wearing restricted clothing such as a komono or abbya or pencil skirt? Wearing the clothing out of a choice, for ceremonial reasons, or on a Sunday, or to a formal dance, is a different situation from being forced by authorities to wear restrictive clothing on a daily basis.
It's a K-8 school. Was expecting it to be a high school from the quotes about sex and sexuality and mature "women" in the lawyerly briefs. The administrators do not appear to recognize they are educating young children who may wish to play on slides and swing sets at recess and hang upside down on monkey bars. 5, 6, 7 8 year olds.
Are some of the boys flipping up the skirts or making fun of the girls when they can see tight "privacy" shorts or spandex that looks like underwear? Girls may not be able to play if the boys think it's funny to see their spandex or tight fitting "privacy" shorts that look like underwear. You can't wear baggy cargo shorts under a skirt.
The simple solution is to end co-ed education. It would solve an awful lot of problems.
Too much lawyering. It's a charter school. It set a standard. Parents made a decision to send their minor children there.
If the dress code is too burdensome, send the kid back to public school where there are NO rules.
This is a Federal case about some parent who wants to get his kid into Harvard by citing her landmark free expression elective in school. "Susan versus skirts"
The issue is power and freedom. Discrimination just the hook.
Chivalry went down with the Titanic.
FIDO: So I am to believe a modish teenaged girl of 1966 was absolutely naive at what effect a mini skirt had on the libidos of young men or at least the attention it engendered from same young men. Sure! /S
There may be precocious teenaged girls here and there who understand exactly what effect they have on the male libido. But most teenage girls are no more clue-ful about the opposite sex than teenage boys are. And for the same reasons: *they're not boys [girls]*. Inexperienced teenage girls, contrary to fond male myth, don't really understand just how distracting their dress is to the boys. *Because they're not boys, and don't know what it feels like to be a boy*.
That's why teenagers shouldn't be allowed to set dress codes.
"The uniform has nothing to do with clothing. It has to do with standards."
But then, the postmodern standard is me, me, me.
At least they side-stepped the whole minefield of gender-identification, say of a cis-boy insisting on wearing a skirt.
There should be zero federal influence in schools. Our federal votes don't mean anything anymore because people want them to mean everything. Just like the common complaint among voters that there are way too many omnibus bills, they seem to want every issue decided in one vote, the presidency.
Sent my daughter to private (Catholic) high school. They had a similar dress code (although a little more relaxed - allowed khaki pants except on “formal dress” days when the skirt was “required”). Still the girls complained.
Frankly, she learned discipline, patience, tolerance, and she had great perspective (what shit really matters and what doesn’t; how “dress code issues” are uptown problems; how to let go of the things you can’t control). Mrs. Al and I were with her all along the way of course, so we knew it was part of a well rounded education/upbringing. At one point she got detention because her shoes were the wrong color (wrong shade). She didn’t like it but just took the hour as an opportunity to do some of her homework. Balance/perspective.
And I loved how the parents took the school’s side in most things, it was a partnership between school/parent. Same at the boys’ school across the street that my son attended. When kids came home and were upset at something that happened at school or they got In trouble, the parents usually said “well what did you do wrong?”
Not sure why everything has to be turned into us v. them; and school/parent fights v. school/parent partnerships; and zero sum views of everything. And I think it’s sad that this actually wasted court time. Probably some kids’s parent was a lawyer. Really dislike those types. What are you teaching your kid?
"I don't think the judge would have thought it was wrong for the school to enforce a dress code that said "no swimwear" or whatever you call "professional" for kids."
The question is whether the judge would have demanded the girls be able to dress for swimming class exactly as the boys.
With the missile lobbed one direction having hit its target, we now await the counterstrike of the boy who wished to wear a skirt.
This is the 2019 version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Wouldn't it be great if there were the choice to send your son to a charter school where they shaped him into a brave, honorable, courteous, ideal knight?
Historically speaking, we should presume that feudal fealty and the mass deaths in wars that the lords, kings and popes would send these knights off to were crucial to how they got that character-development bargain working.
Probably the "bravest" societies are tribal, where feats of ability and courage are common rites of passage for young adolescents. They also suffer the highest homicide and genocide rates.
Our society can't even handle honest discussions of sex much less actively female sexual expression, and you think we could revert to things like this! Doesn't sound very likely.
Property comes first nowadays, and that requires self-preservation at least as much as it does the preservation of a woman's fidelity to determinate paternity - if it even still does. Which it doesn't.
The mode of enforcement aside, perhaps, Althouse was treated correctly with respect to the suppression of fashionable expression. Fashions are destructive things that undermine that which should be regarded as eternal. Fashion is an expression of mass psychology overcoming personal judgment and established arrangements that preserve society and culture.
One can imagine that objecting to fashions in clothing to be overbearing and over-controlling on trivial matters, but everything is connected. Accomodations in any one sphere open the doors to the same, in many more, creating, in effect, the tendency to a fashion of fashions, unrestricted mutation, effectively a collapse of the social and cultural order.
Human societies have a difficult enough time dealing with the constant shock of technological change, which constantly runs faster than the human animal can deal with. Human society and culture are evolved ways of coping, to the degree possible. Letting wild memes play hell with human coping mechanisms is asking for disaster.
It is a proper role for schools and teachers to hamper such things, act as brakes, and sanction youthful indiscipline and vanity.
Chivalry is a two way street: men behave well and true and honorably. These days, it is called 'socially responsible'.
Women were supposed to behave in a socially responsible way as well. Which meant not speaking simultaneously demanding perfect safety while making social control more difficult AND breaking norms.
So Miley Cyrus is Althouses God Daughter. And men have had to learn extraordinary socio-sexual control. So much so that 28% of men haven't had sex and a larger number don't want marriage.
So all of this is Althouses fault, obviously.
If you don't like the dress code don't enroll in that school. There are plenty of taxpayer paid schools where you can dress as slutty as you like.
As others have said, do you want more Trump?
Because this is how you get more Trump.
The defense of custom is typical in many other nations.
Philippine business law for instance has it that a contract can be invalid if it has conditions that violate morals and "good customs".
In 1966 I was precisely one of the guys that your principal was trying to protect. I very definitely spent more of my class time trying to see something interesting up those skirts than I did on the teachers and their blackboards up front. Wonder if this was the secret weapon employed by females to get better grades than we got ( #1 and #2 in my class were girls). No doubt most of the other guys were the same. I don’t think that pants were as bad in class, but maybe worse walking down the hall. In 1968 I went away to college, and what was up those skirts was soon revealed. And 3 of my years there I spent shacked up, which meant that I was seeing it every night up close and personal.
I wonder how the judge would rule on hijabs.
There is also an equality aspect to a dress code for high school girls. It prevents girls from wealthy families from showing up at school regularly showing off the latest and most expensive teenage girl fashions. You would think liberals would support this and think it to be a good idea.
Sex is a funny thing. It's absolutely essential to our very survival as a species, so you could say that doing it is the most important thing in the world, and not just in our heads, but in reality. At the same time, we spend so much energy trying to stop it from happening, making it difficult, even illegal. We are a strange animal. It's an argument for the gospel that we are so unfit for survival and yet did somehow.
Why not have the girls wear divided skirts (not sure if you would call these culottes or not). Sure would be a lot more practical and comfortable.
I'll go with James K here. I see the words "charter school", and that's a trigger.
Public schools in a lot of school districts in this country have descended into chaos; little learning takes place in them. Charter schools are (or are supposed to be) an oasis of sanity, discipline and learning. Parents want to get their kids out of the ruck. That's one reason why parochial schools (with their uniforms) are attractive.
But here we have a parent or parents who opted out of the public schools available to them--and put their child or children (presumably female) in a charter school. The problem is that the parents of that child or those children brought their litigious values with them--sorta like Californians moving to other states and spoiling those states. The most appropriate response would have been to tell those parents to put their kids back in public school where they could wear whatever the heck they wanted. And while we're on this madness, we haven't even begun to think about the 33 plus flavors of sexual expression and accommodation on offer or demanded.
The uniform can be pants suits or the option of skirts. Up to the student. But it is still a defined uniform. Not this one-upmanship they have with how the dress in school.
What they are trying to do is stop this one-upmanship students have over the cost of what they where. Poorer students can't afford $100 shoes or fancy brand name cloths. So a uniform cuts that out and allows more time to concentrate on studying.
Just give them the option.
According to the decision, the skirt requirement forced girls to “pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning, and has led them to avoid certain activities altogether, such as climbing or playing sports during recess, all for fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers or teased by boys.”
Sounds like the judge has a very low opinion of females. I wonder how many cases he dismissed because the female perp was on her period and thus "mentally impaired"
pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning
Hah! Welcome to our world. Men have to pay constant attention to something between our own legs and it distracts us from everything but sex. That 15 minute span after sex? Those are the brief moments where we were able to focus on things like discovering fire and creating the internet.
I was destined to cure cancer but -- oh wow, look at the curve of her legs. The way her hair falls around her neck. What was I saying? Something about boobs? Oh nevermind.
fear of exposing their undergarments
So... not going to crew the Viking raid parties?
According to the decision, the skirt requirement forced girls to “pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning, and has led them to avoid certain activities altogether, such as climbing or playing sports during recess, all for fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers or teased by boys.”
Sounds like the judge has a very low opinion of females. I wonder how many cases he dismissed because the female perp was on her period and thus "mentally impaired"
pay constant attention to the positioning of their legs during class, distracting them from learning
Hah! Welcome to our world. Men have to pay constant attention to something between our own legs and it distracts us from everything but sex. That 15 minute span after sex? Those are the brief moments where we were able to focus on things like discovering fire and creating the internet.
I was destined to cure cancer but -- oh wow, look at the curve of her legs. The way her hair falls around her neck. What was I saying? Something about boobs? Oh nevermind.
fear of exposing their undergarments
So... not going to crew the Viking raid parties?
I went to Catholic schools. I didn't realize it at the time, but, as it turned out, the number one fetish outfit for girls among porn enthusiasts is a Catholic schoolgirl outfit. I'm surprised that parents make their girls wear these lurid outfits. They might as well be sending them to class in black fishnet stockings and red stiletto heels. I think the basic hijab offers women the most feeedom of movement while at the same time preserving modesty. It's time to move past our religious prejudices and rethink this useful garment,
Depending on their age, the time of day, or their mood, women drsss for different and often conflicting purposes. Modesty, fashion, status, sex appeal, protest against the patriarchy: some of the women all of the time or all of the women some of the time are dressing to achieve these goals......Men--or anyway men with money---have occasionally dressed foolishly, but there seems to be a universal constant that women are always picking up on some absurd fashion trend.......I read Mrs. Trollope's account of her travels in America in the 1820's. In those days, men chewed tobacco and women wore floor length dresses. Mrs. Trollope complained that it was very difficult to keep her garments free from tobacco spittle. Sure, one solution to the problem was for men to stop chewing tobacco. Another solution would be for women to stop wearing floor length garments. Need I tell you what solution what solution Mrs. Trollope advocated.......The judgment of history has ruled against tobacco chewing and floor length garments. It's possible for everyone to be wrong.
Feudal wars of the European sort rarely involved mass deaths. The armies were amost always very small and the stakes were also small. Societies could, but did not, organize truly disruptive wars. Compare to the Chinese end-of-dynasty wars, such asthe Three Kingdoms period.
It appears many upthread cut right to the chase and highlight where this is about State interference in a private institutions conduct Meanwhile there was a story yesterday where univ students are to judge their professors on more than their ability to teach the stated curriculum. Why - because the admin says so.
Sooner or later things get too big and too complex and too many lawyers and policies from head office and what you will get is people simply ignoring and going their own way, hoping they aren't the one chosen to be made the sacrificial lamb example. Sorta the worst of worlds. All laws, but no one following, so all are indictable at any time. James Madison had a quote about that.
No shirts no shoes no service used to be a sign at the local corner store. Maybe the owner lost a lot of business to people who hate wearing shoes, and maybe you have a right not to wear shoes, but I thought as a kid: well, it was their business. If you are a parent and you don't want to put your daughter in the (private) school uniform, you don't have to. You can go down the street.
This story does make me think of that old line: "if you like your doctor..." and how - once the State is involved - how painfully untrue that idea actually becomes.
I'm kinda curious who brought the lawsuit. Not curious enough to click however.
The idea that the 14th Amendment bars requiring girls to wear skirts is insane. But Crazy Americans loved to be ruled by Judges. Next: The 14th Amendment Requires Boys to wear skirts. Why Not?
Maybe Althouse could explain how her old-time principal should have convinced her to wear an appropriate skirt? Obviously, this guy didn't understand how the female mind works. Enforcing rules = sexism. Personally, I think girls should be allowed to wear anything they wish.
I'm a bit conflicted.
The vice-principal was absolutely correct in the effect of short skirts on high school-age males. (I was in high school from 1968-72, a Catholic co-ed high school which had minor and loosely-enforced restrictions on skirt length.)
But it's not his place to graphically explain this to young Ms. Althouse. His office is not an appropriate site for sex education class.
Let the schools set their standards. Let the parents choose the schools. Judge the performance of their students. It works for the States. It works for communities. It works for families. Learn from the schools, States, communities, and families that succeed. It's a heuristic process that will dynamically optimize humanity's best practices. Maybe we'll learn that religious/moral codes are wicked. Maybe we'll confirm that Gaia is a sexist, chauvinistic pig. Isn't that what we are all impatiently hoping to discover?
How women made it to adulthood while wearing skirts! Topic reeks of heaviosity!
At an all girls school I was required to wear a plaid skirt and white shirt, and they had added the option of plaid pants by the time I reached high school. I thought the plaid pants were awful and continued to wear a skirt over shorts. I spent much of my time on the playground hanging upside down on the monkey bars, so shorts were an essential part of my wardrobe. I liked the comfort and ease of wearing a uniform.
Here are my thoughts on this situation.
1) The skirts only policy is anachronistic and I would advise adding a pants option.
2) This is a charter school- parents know the policies when they enroll their children, and should be prepared to follow the policy or work with PTA or administration to change the policy (like parents promoted change at my private school many years ago). Going to court over school uniforms is doing an end run around others with a vested interest in school policy.
3) A charter school is still a public school, not a private school, so the judge made an appropriate ruling. If the school was a private school that received no government funding, the judge should have allowed the school policy to stand.
Social standards are designed to create a favorable juxtaposition of the male and female sex with a view to order and our Posterity. The chivalric codes (really a social contract) were founded on the premise of men being gentlemen and women being ladies, where each sex would be self-moderating and personally responsible, and gender-correlated (e.g. physiology) duties and constraints.
Somebody pointed out that this involved K-8 schools. "Middle Schools" were invented to separate puberty lade kids from smaller kids.
I went to a Catholic elementary school, then a boys high school. That seems appropriate but public schools are determined to consolidate thousands of kids in giant schools where crazies will be scattered among the normals, as in Broward County. My kids, except the oldest, all went to private schools and I wish I could afford to send my grand children to them but tuition in California has gone the way of blousing prices. My younger son's HS graduating class was 25 and most of them are still friends at age 50.
This school is between Wilmington, NC, and the beach. The area is suburban and probably 75% transplants from outside NC. Our public schools are heavily regulated and significantly funded by the state government. The Dem governor squeaked into office in 2016 after the Trans Bathroom bill lost the state some tournaments and business.
“They argue that taking away the ‘visual cues’ of the skirts requirement would hinder respect between the two sexes.”
...
“Defendants have shown no connection between these stated goals and the requirement that girls wear skirts,”
Well, skirts and pants are kind of an observable, reproducible difference to distinguish between sexes, and an aid to enforce codes of chivalry or similar sex-correlated behavioral and developmental standards. Perhaps everyone could wear pants, with the girls in pink and the boys in blue.
Back in the 1990s, the company I worked for instituted casual Fridays, and within a month management found it expedient to institute a Casual Friday dress code, especially with respect to how high above the knee a skirt could go. Sure enough, a couple of our male software engineers showed up the next Friday in kilts.
I get what the school was trying to do, but they are trying to recreate a time that is gone with the wind. Tell them the young women (clearly they are not ladies!) that the administration is keeping a supply of ugly one-size-fits-all (one size fits no one) skirts and any girl showing up in yoga pants or shorts that are —subjectively!— too short will be forced to wear the ugly skirts over what they are wearing. Should fix things.
As to the judge, tar. Feathers. There are things that rightly ought to be beyond judicial review.
This bullshit is why a unisex school uniform should be required.
OTOH, traditional female school uniforms have long fueled sexual fetishes so the sexualization battle is lost either way.
Then there's this...and, yes, the students voted to keep the traditional uniform.
When will a one federal judge rule that the fancy dress codes at Mara Largo are unconstitutional?
And another that strapless evening gowns revealing plenty of cleavage should be banned, to ward off out-of-control male sexual tendencies?
Coming to a town near you.
Personally I frame these battles as the rights of parents and private institutions to determine minor issues that are easily and effectively solved at the local level, vs. intrusion of federal bureaucratic and judicial busybodies telling people how they have to live their lives, in minute detail, from a faraway place.
Guess which side I favor.
BTW, I have heard several parents over the years say that school uniforms are worth it for one key reason: it removes all the drama and competition that comes with wearing the latest fashions, athletic shoes, etc. That whole discussion just goes away, and the kids get the subtle but important message that we are here to learn, not outdo each other with clothes and shoes. I wish public schools could do uniforms for the same reason.
Fen,
"That 15 minute span after sex? Those are the brief moments where we were able to focus on things like discovering fire and creating the internet."
Also, cuddling.
A number of commenters offer the argument that the charter school is for parents who opt in and if a parent wants to change how the charter school operates, then they don't belong.
This is a circular argument and ignores how charter schools work. A charter school operates under a charter that distinguishes it from the standard public schools in curriculum, instructional practice, technology, or some other rubric. Charter schools are public schools that are open to all children in a district.
I find it very dubious that the distinguishing charter of this particular schools is "girls wear skirts." That would not be sufficient to establish approval by the state. If the charter identifies a particular educational practice that a parent wants for their child, those parents are perfectly in their rights to question whether "girls wear skirts" is a necessary part of that.
D 2 said...
said...
It appears many upthread cut right to the chase and highlight where this is about State interference in a private institutions conduct
That's a good summation. But here's the rub. Public charter schools ARE the state. North Carolina appears to give its charter schools pretty broad leeway, but they are still chartered by the state and have to meet state requirements.
"He was making it sexual, imposing man-mind on me.."
Uncovered meat.
"Charter schools may offer academic or course-of-study options that a parent may want for their child and that isn't available elsewhere."
I believe the proper response to parents who would use this as a reason for choosing such a charter school, and then suing over its clearly stated rules, is "tough titties".
12:15 Jeff - agreed for the most part. Uniforms.
I remember the first time I started to care about keeping up with the cool kids. My family - we were not well off. It costs a lot of money to wear the latest fashion trends. There is a reason the fashion industry is so manipulative with females and young people in general.
More money for the fashion industry. We really don't need much, as far as clothes. The pressure to showcase style and affluence and hipness is big in a young persons life. Isay give the fashion industry the middle finger. Jeans and a black or white plain t-shirt every day. Wear a cool jacket is you want to impress.
Uniforms or basic dress codes that keep it all simple and make standard requirements for both boys and girls.
As for skirts - a long full skirt is probably better at hiding the female form than tight pants. Teens are blossoming and filled with confusion jealousy and hormones. How to handle it the best way is tricky and not easy to answer.
Back when I was in high school (I graduated in ‘64) there was an apocryphal story running around about a vice principal pointing to the girl’s crotch and asking whether “that” was for sale.
“Of course not!”
“Then why do you advertise it?”
*** fear of exposing their undergarments and being reprimanded by teachers ***
Eternal vigilance is the price of chastity.
Some would say the miniskirt was pursuing "man-mind".
The lecture about horny boys' response more typically a "mom-mind" sorta thing.
But then..if Playboy mags are laying next to TV Guide....
Professional Lady suggests: Why not have the girls wear divided skirts (not sure if you would call these culottes or not). Sure would be a lot more practical and comfortable.
I thought of culottes, too--actually, I used to have some--but I figured no one else would know what I was talking about. ;-)
I believe the proper response to parents who would use this as a reason for choosing such a charter school, and then suing over its clearly stated rules, is "tough titties".
No, the proper response is "I'll take you to court and win." To say that the ruling of a charter school can't be contested is no different than saying that the ruling of a public school can't be contested. Charter schools are public schools.
I'm a 100% proponent of charter schools, but the idea that they're scrappy little underdog academies of genius taking on the establishment is a myth. Many charter schools have just as much disfunction and unexamined methodologies as the public schools they're supposed to augment. Indeed, one big argument in favor of charter schools is that they are easier to close.
Sadly, in Massachusetts, the boilerplate narrative about charter schools representing a conservative alternative to the establishment works against them. Massachusetts has a very high standard for how chartered schools are chartered and holds charter schools to high state standards (just like regular public schools), yet many voters here think of them as a conservative effort to privatize public schools and vote against their expansion. That's really frustrating.
Charter School Myths & Realities
culottes ... If they pass muster with esteemed hostess, men should be allowed also.
It is hard to see how requiring girls to wear skirts constrains sexual expression.
When I was an adolescent male, attractive girls could wear anything short of a potato sack and I would get turned on.
Why do you think adolescent boys wear their shirts untucked?
Social standards are a key difference between public and private, failed and successful schools. The whole point of expanding school choice is to avoid the single-minded directives that have forced progressive outcomes in public schools.
Eternal vigilance is the price of chastity.
Where there was mutual expectations of self-moderation and personal responsibility, today there's a chauvinistic argument that the masculine male has responsibility, while the feminine female has a choice, before, during, after, and under some PC sects even decades later. A diametric departure from physiological awareness, and chivalric and similar codes of mutual respect and responsibility.
culottes ... If they pass muster with esteemed hostess
Meade to model.
This comment to precede my earlier.
Blogger Gahrie said...
The simple solution is to end co-ed education. It would solve an awful lot of problems.
3/31/19, 10:12 AM
Sadly, yes, yes it would.
It demonstrates that the leaders and policy makers of yore were actually a lot smarter than our current crop of administrators, if only by accident.
Bruce Johnson
Bruce Johnson, Older and wiser with experience
Answered Mar 22, 2016 · Author has 929 answers and 2.8m answer views
There are two distinctly different ways to answer this question. From the viewpoint of mini skirts on women and from the viewpoint of mini skirts on men. (Yes, men easily rock mini skirts and "like" them).
1). Mini skirts on women simply look outstanding due the the curves women have. They will always look much better than men wearing them, however, men wearing mini skirts do look better than when wearing shorts!....
Why do men like miniskirts so much?
The problem of exposed undergarments could be solved by girls wearing none.
Sometimes I wish I were Laslo
Charter School Myths & Realities
Charters do not reflect the diversity of the community
...
helping to close the achievement gap between white students, suburban students and minority children
Massachusetts charter schools are diversitist. It seems that color judgments including racism is a persistent part of our society. Here's to progress.
Culottes are pretty dangerous. People sans-skirts take you to court. People sans-culottes take you to the guillotine.
So I guess the girls won't be required to wear bras?
A charter school is still a public school, not a private school, so the judge made an appropriate ruling. If the school was a private school that received no government funding, the judge should have allowed the school policy to stand."
I never understood the logic of this argument since courts and government agencies have their own dress codes and there is nothing barring non-profits and other beneficiaries of taxpayer largess from from having their own dress codes.
Char Char Binks said...The problem of exposed undergarments could be solved by girls wearing none.
--
"Free the pussy!"
How about parents make sure their offspring aren't wearing rap-song slut wear to school. Then maybe the schools wouldn't need to awkwardly address the dress issue.
People sans-culottes take you to the guillotine.
That's right! I'd forgotten about that angle.
The birds and bees, and all of nature, did not evolve by hiding the sexual attractiveness of its living reproductive units. Reproduction has always been one of the Three Absolute Requirements for a species to survive.
To survive life needs: 1) a food source (i.e., cows) 2) a successful sexual reproduction method (i.e., young ladies wearing sexy skirts)and 3) a successful defense against predators ( i.e., strong men armed).
Henry: No, the proper response is "I'll take you to court and win." To say that the ruling of a charter school can't be contested is no different than saying that the ruling of a public school can't be contested. Charter schools are public schools.
I don't think most posters here are unaware that charter schools are public schools.
It doesn't follow from their being public schools that the "proper response" to a dress code dispute is to take it to court.
Sadly, in Massachusetts, the boilerplate narrative about charter schools representing a conservative alternative to the establishment works against them. Massachusetts has a very high standard for how chartered schools are chartered and holds charter schools to high state standards (just like regular public schools), yet many voters here think of them as a conservative effort to privatize public schools and vote against their expansion. That's really frustrating.
Are they entirely wrong in that perception? I imagine that there are parents who want a charter school that meets "very high [academic] standards" who yet want a more "traditional" environment than is offered by regular public schools. (You seem to be suggesting that the two preferences are mutually exclusive.) Allowing conservative parents to choose a school that doesn't go along with standard public school progressive ideological indoctrination would not change it to a private school, but it's not surprising that a majority of the population of ultra-blue Massachusetts wouldn't want that choice available, even if they fully understand the charter school concept. What "traditionalists" want (like, e.g., required skirt-wearing) goes against local cultural norms.
And really, I don't disagree with that objection, in principle. (I just wish respect for local norms was a tad more reciprocal in this country.) I can think of a lot of things I wouldn't want a public charter school to be allowed to do, because it violates what *I* consider American cultural norms that nobody (prog, traditional religious type, or whomever) should be allowed to flout in a public institution. (There are American cultural norms that I don't believe anybody in the U.S. should be allowed to flout privately, either.)
And there's the rub. This ostensibly simple case isn't about pants. (That could easily have been settled, probably in the complainants' favor, by a PTA meeting.) These things are manifestations of cultural conflicts that aren't going to be solved or settled by legal procedure - no matter how many lawsuits are brought and how many rulings handed down.
“Char Char Binks said...The problem of exposed undergarments could be solved by girls wearing none.”
--
"Free the pussy!"- Walter
Perverts. These are Kindergarten through 8th grade girls.
There's no chivalry without horses.
En habit de chaval, Erik Satie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkZzAoIdNQ
The fugue is nice. It got a mark "very nice" from Satie's music composition instructor.
He went back to music school after he got famous.
My wife points out that the skirt requirement was a significant problem on cold winter days.
Oh butthurt Inga. You Dems want to lower voting age and enable kids getting abortions without parental consent. It's a slogan that your camp would create.
This is Althouse all over:
Bake that fucking cake.
I want the right to violate norms because 'fashion' and 'it's your problem, not mine'
So yeah, liberal parents wanting all the benefits of a disciplined, traditional school...but want the freedom to violate the norms involved because 'Don't you know who I am?'
Which sort of misses the point. The skirts, the mindset, the following rules: all blown away in an instant for their daughter. "I can get away with anything because judges say I can 'do what thou wilt'."
How can the daughter take any of their strictures seriously now? Civilization is a lie we all mutually share, until we have assholes try to point out the lie by making a skirt wearing (or length) policy the most important part of their life. One worth violating norms over. We teach these little barbarians the rules...and then we teach them HOW they are important and WHY. Because clearly a 16 year old is not particularly intelligent or wise when it comes to nuance, but IS very opinionated about what Teen Vogue or Elle tells her about what she MUST wear.
Fifty two years. That is a long time to be triggered and even longer to for a law professor to be in denial about conceding a single point of social order.
@Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard -- It's totally unclear to me what the charter of the North Carolina school is. It may be "conservative values", but I really don't know. I've looked at the Massachusetts charter school law in some detail -- mainly to argue for it -- and charters are completely based on an academic premise. A school could be chartered as a bi-lingual mandarin / english school, or as a montessori school, or as a engineering-focused school, or as an occupational-focused school. A school could, potentially, ask for a charter as a "catholic but without the nuns" school, but I don't think that charter would be granted.
It's rather comical that FIDO assumes that because this school had a skirt requirement it is automatically a "disciplined, traditional school." Maybe it is, but unless I had a child actually in that school and knew other parents who actually had kids in that school, I would not assume anything.
Again, if the school has a charter to be a school with a dress code, that's one thing. If the dress code is some kind of extension of the principal's world view, and it's not in the charter, that's something else.
Sheesh. Charter schools are voluntarily chosen by parents, so this rule is not imposed in students who have no say in attending the school. And the correct Trump expression is "letting [the man] grab them by the pussy." Trump loves to chase skirts but he is all about consent.
No small point, that.
Oh, and chivalry is a system involving obligations accepted by both men and women. It's not a man thing by any means.
These things are manifestations of cultural conflicts that aren't going to be solved or settled by legal procedure
True enough. But in this case the conflict-at-hand was solved by a legal procedure. That is what legal procedures are for -- to solve, in a tactical manner, things that are irresolvable at a cultural level. To say that a person is not allowed to turn to the law is to guarantee that conflicts go unresolved.
Tucson unified has the problem solved. They are trying to sell an unused school to a developer so he can tear it down and build apartments. The reason ? A charter school wants to buy it. Can't have that in deep blue Tucson.
Paging Rowdy Roddy Piper....
Charter schools are schools of choice, if you don't like the premise of the school's policies, go to your neighborhood school or a different charter. That's all. No one will die from wearing a skirt. At our charter, most girls just wore bike shorts under them and played on the playground to their heart's desire.
"Perverts. These are Kindergarten through 8th grade girls."
I blame Laslo
My wife points out that the skirt requirement was a significant problem on cold winter days.
In the old days they just allowed slacks under skirts when the temperature hit a defined point.
chivalry is a compact requiring something from the one who offers courtesy, and the one who receives it, regardless of who is the male and who is female. Someone holds the door for you? You say thank you. Simple as that. Skirts are unrelated to behavior, unsurprisingly.
The law cannot solve cultural conflicts, other than giving someone a shallow victory.
Whopee. The cost of that, though, can be terrible.
If the law is used for this purpose then the losing side develops further bitterness and disrespect for the law.
Here's a radical idea. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere.
Me: These things are manifestations of cultural conflicts that aren't going to be solved or settled by legal procedure.
Henry: True enough. But in this case the conflict-at-hand was solved by a legal procedure. That is what legal procedures are for -- to solve, in a tactical manner, things that are irresolvable at a cultural level. To say that a person is not allowed to turn to the law is to guarantee that conflicts go unresolved.
No, the conflict hasn't been solved by a legal procedure. The underlying cultural conflict (which you seem to agree can't be solved by legal procedure) is still there. That the real problem - this isn't really about pants - can't be resolved by legal means is exactly my point. That a simple dress-code disagreement was taken to a court of law is the give-away here, Henry. A request to be allowed to wear pants is reasonable, and I doubt that there was some entrenched, ferocious opposition to it among the local "stakeholders" who get a say in these matters, Mr. Principal's views notwithstanding.
Nobody is saying that *no* conflicts can be resolved by legal procedure. But you're asserting that the law can sail serenely above real cultural conflicts (oddly, after agreeing that they can't), and I'm arguing that that's exactly what the law *can't* do. The law can only resolve conflicts among people who are not divided by deeper cultural conflicts, who share "first principles" about the way things ought to be. Otherwise, the law can only temporarily paper-over disagreements, not resolve them.
Ann, I laughed about your high school troubles because it reminded me of the stupidity in my high school. The school instructed the home room teachers to measure (yes physically measure) the girls skirts to make sure they were no higher than two inches above the knee. My home room was a history class with Mr. Haley. He thought this was ridiculous but he had to comply but he did so in a subversive manner. He had the girls line up at the back wall and, sitting at his desk, he held up a ruler at arms length and made his official measurement. Unsurprisingly, none of the girls ever failed to pass the test (since two inches on that scale would above waist level).
I attended high school during the mini-skirt era. It wasn't trying to look up the skirt that was a problem (we are not all THAT piggish). But the curve of a girl's thigh starting above the knee... heaven.
Of course a girl walking away from you in tight jeans.....
Or sweaters, my God, SWEATERS....
What was the subject again?
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