A dress code in action

Lincoln High School (a pseudonym) serves 1,200 students in a small Midwestern urban community.
Lincoln’s student body is about 40% White, 35% Black, 10% Latino, and 10% multiracial; about two-
thirds of the students are classified as economically disadvantaged.

In response to school and community members’ concerns about racial inequities in the local schools, a
Social Justice Task Force was formed to investigate the problem and develop strategies to address it.
This included trainings for all school employees at which they discussed issues at their schools where
race may be a factor, implicitly or explicitly. When a task force member informally asked students what
issues fit this description, their immediate response was, “The dress code!”

A different type of dress code is needed that helps schools and students to challenge dominant
narratives of who they are or could be.

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To better understand the students’ concern, we surveyed all Lincoln High School students (receiving 384
responses) and randomly sampled 13 teachers to interview. The survey asked students about the
frequency with which they followed the dress code, the degree to which they were disciplined about
their dress, and their opinions about the dress code more generally. Teacher interviews focused on their
beliefs about the dress code, in general, and in relation to race and gender. Ultimately, we hoped to
answer the question: To what degree, if at all, does Lincoln High School’s dress code disproportionately
affect students based on their gender and/or race?

Disproportionate enforcement by race and gender

Lincoln’s dress code forbids clothing that administrators deem too revealing, with specific bans on
spaghetti straps and tube tops, visible midriffs or cleavage, and dresses, skirts, and shorts that do not
extend past the middle knuckle when arms are straight down. Undergarments (including bra straps)
should not be visible, and leggings are prohibited. Head coverings that are not for religious purposes are
also not allowed.

In most cases, students reported similar frequencies of dress code infractions, with White females and
Black males reporting slightly higher rates and White males slightly lower rates. This would lead one to
expect that dress code infractions would line up with their representation within the school. However,
when we look at the likelihood of students being “coded” (i.e., having a school adult ask them to remove
or cover a clothing item), we see a different picture (see Figure 1). Black males, Black females, and
multiracial females stand out as students who reported being disproportionately coded. On the other
hand, White females and White males were much less likely to report being coded. Essentially, survey
responses showed that students of color are more likely to be coded for breaking the dress code even if
they do so at a similar rate to White students. The disproportionality is even more striking when looking
at which students report being disciplined, which may involve a suspension, detention, or being sent
home. While only 30 of the 384 survey participants reported being disciplined, they were
overwhelmingly Black and multiracial, male and female.

Another way to look at these data is through the concept of relative risk, or the probability of an event
occurring for one subgroup in comparison to that of the group at large. A relative risk score of 1.0 means
that there is no difference in terms of the probability of the event occurring to an individual in the
subgroup versus in the group at large. Looking at the data through this lens clearly shows that Black
males and females and multiracial females report a greater risk of being coded and that Black and
multiracial males and multiracial females report a greater risk of being disciplined (see Figure 2).

Looking at Lincoln High School’s dress code from the perspectives of students and teachers, it quickly
becomes clear that racial and gender narratives are at play in students’ experiences of the dress code.
Students’ and teachers’ perspectives illustrate two narratives about how students of color are affected
differently by the seemingly neutral policy. For males of color, the dress code and the ways it is enforced
are related to the larger U.S. narrative that criminalizes them. On the other hand, females of color are
sexualized by the dress code and blamed for creating a negative school climate.