Students say Clovis Unified’s dress code is sexist. This student wants to change that

During her freshman year at Clovis High School, Annie Nguyen said she began to notice the district’s dress code seemed to target certain students more than others.

“At first, it just used to be something like an annoyance,” she said. “‘Oh, you got in trouble for wearing this or that?’ But then I started hearing something that didn’t really feel right. My friends told me they felt really ashamed.

“It kind of snowballed to a point where I just couldn’t really take it anymore,” she said.

During her last semester before graduation this year, the 17-year-old got to work trying to change what she and other students say are language and rules that leave “little to no room for students to feel safe or comfortable in their own bodies and individuality.”

“I don’t think students should have to conform and have to worry all the time about being acceptable, or being quote, unquote, ‘distracting to other students.’”

When Nguyen made a callout for other students to share their dress code stories, she received over 200 comments, many from girls who say they felt sexualized by the administration and teachers for having bodies that put them in violation of the dress code.

Nguyen started speaking out at district board meetings in April, along with several other students who would relay their experiences, asking trustees to make changes.

The cause has gathered more than 2,300 signatures in support of making those major changes.

After gathering information from other students, Nguyen put together a document outlining their specific demands. It includes allowing most uncovered tattoos, piercings, facial hair, and unnatural hair colors. But many of the demands focus on the rules that mostly affect girls, such as having visible bra straps or wearing no bra at all and allowing shorter shorts, crop tops, and spaghetti-strap tops.

Nguyen used Fresno Unified’s dress code as a starting point for her document.

“Students should be able to wear clothing without fear of or actual unnecessary discipline or body shaming,” the FUSD dress code reads.

During Nguyen’s meetings with other students, she said she found many dress code violations “involved shame tactics, like having students made to wear bright neon shirts that say, ‘property of the school’ or something, or just wear clothing (that) student services have on hand, but they haven’t been washed, or it’s just very unsanitary. It makes me wonder why exactly they feel this need to take that extra (time) to shame students.”

Something else she noticed was that many students said they’d been taken out of class or entire school days “because of simple violations like maybe their skirt was half an inch too short.”

She said staff members would take out measuring sticks to make sure clothes fit the dress code, “and they would have their education deprived because of that.”

Dress code history at CUSD

Clovis Unified has a history of controversy when it comes to its dress code. In 1994, the district fought and won a lawsuit that allowed it to continue forbidding boys from having long hair.

In 2016, teen boys wore dresses at Buchanan High School to protest the gendered language of the district’s dress code before the board reluctantly chose to change the language.

The ACLU has stepped in several times to represent Black and Native American students who said they felt the district discriminated against them because of their culture.

One parent of a graduating Clovis North High School student said the district “picks and chooses when to enforce” the dress code.

The parent, who did not want to be named for fear his son would be targeted, said when seniors were practicing for graduation ceremonies in early June, his son was sent home after students were told to lower their coronavirus face-masks to make sure they didn’t have facial hair or piercings.

He said his son had been growing out his facial hair, and it had never been a problem since he had returned to campus in January.

“They have a tattoo policy that says, ‘hey, tattoos have to be covered,’” the parent said. “I told the principal, you guys aren’t asking kids to take off their shirts to see if they have tattoos. But here you’re asking them to remove their masks. That’s just ridiculous.”

District spokesperson Kelly Avants confirmed that several students were sent home for dress code violations and told they couldn’t participate in the graduation ceremony if they weren’t within the dress code.

“Any time students are participating in any school activity, the expectation that is very well communicated to our students is that they are expected to be in dress code,” she said.

The Clovis North parent said his son, who is an honors student, was devastated.

“This (was) his last week to be with his friends. Not to mention, poor things, these seniors, they have their senior year devastated because of this pandemic, and they’re getting sent home for practice.”

CUSD trustee comments

Avants said every year, the district has a review process for the dress code that includes participation by students and a report to the governing board.

That review process will take place in the fall and involve school staff, parents, and students, she said.

At the district’s board meeting on Wednesday, several speakers showed up to talk to trustees about changing the dress code.

A speaker who only gave her first name as Jessica said she was a 2020 Clovis Unified graduate that felt the dress code made girls feel like objects and boys look like perpetrators for the way they viewed them.

“None of the rules for girls are meant to protect them,” she told the board. “It’s to police their bodies. If you really feel like girls need extra rules for how they dress at school to keep them safe, maybe it is time to evaluate your male students and evaluate your male staff.”

Trustee Susan K. Hatmaker said she took offense that the speaker would accuse the board of doing anything to “objectify any particular gender.”

“To suggest otherwise is absurd,” she said. “Students come to school to learn, the teachers are here to teach. When you go to work, there are going to be expectations, there are going to be rules, and there are going to be dress codes. Dressing professionally is a part of life.”

She said after reading the student list of demands, she disagreed with how far it went.

“It speaks of one inch below the buttcrack for shorts, and I believe I’m the one who mentioned last time that I would not be in support of that.”

Board President Steven Fogg said he’d like to see data about whether having a more lenient dress code would improve students’ education scores.

“I think one of the issues is not necessarily the dress code itself, but the implementation and enforcement of the dress code,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to work on with our own staff and faculty, we get that, but I don’t know if the answer to change the policy.”

A speaker who identified herself as a parent told Fogg the issue wasn’t about whether the dress code impacts test scores.

“I think you’re missing the point,” she said. “That’s not what is being asked here.”

Superintendent Eimear O’Farrell said parents want to be involved, and many favor the current dress code.

“I believe it was 62% of our parents expressed in our survey that they favored the dress code as is or stricter,” she said.

O’Farrell acknowledged that students and some parents have concerns and the dress code needs to be reviewed. But “that’s not something that happens overnight,” she said. “We have commissioned to do a thorough review during the fall.”

Feminism and activism

Nguyen’s activism has caught the attention of Kathryn Forbes, the department chair of Fresno State’s Women, Gender and Sexuality studies. She calls Nguyen and her team “the next generation of feminist leaders who are already using their voices and their power to make the world better for girls.”

Nguyen is working with Forbes to organize the information she collected.

“These young feminists have gathered enough data for a master’s thesis,” Forbes said. “These students have a deep understanding of the gendered politics of dress codes.”

Nguyen, who also served as Clovis High’s student body president this year, said she hasn’t always been this outspoken.

“I was very nervous when this all started,” she said. “I have a lot more support than I do opposition. There are all these students just coming out of the shadows and feeling inspired by this movement. I think that even if certain people haven’t vocalized their support, I definitely think that this has been an issue that has been bothering students for years.”

Although she only recently became aware of the dress code issues that happened in 2016, Nguyen said it inspired her.

“I think that’s a testament to how powerful youth voices can be, (and) how much power other young people really have.”

Although she’s graduated from Clovis Unified, she won’t be leaving the cause behind.

“I’ll be attending Clovis Community, so I’ll be paying close attention for two more years,” she said. “Over the summer, I’m definitely going to have some meetings with current CUSD students to pass on the torch and just keep the movement going.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.