Man, am I ever glad I went to public school. We may have had borderline-insane, underpaid, over-worked teachers, some classes just totally missing teachers (behold the phenomemon of the “long-term” sub), Chinese-American junkies, blunt-smoking gang-bangers who hug out right in front of the school, Chicago PD instead of “hall monitors”, and random weapons sweeps, but at least we had out freedom! Oh, wait…
So were you getting busted at the mall in school uniform, or out? I could understand if you were in the school uniform (even if I don’t exactly agree with it) but if you were there in casual clothes it seems a little draconian.
Follow me to the pit, kind sir.
While during my time in C-schools I hated this little “habit” :D, I don’t see the real problem. Do you think, Guin, that schools should have the right to suspend/expel students for criminal activity outside of school? If you do, then it’s just an issue of degree.
Sua
I think you’ll find few countries where having an untucked shirt is a felony, and I’m pretty sure the US (where I presume the author is from. Ditto for any other english speaking country, though) isn’t one of them. A crime is an entirely different matter.
Being black myself, I’m with the African-American students on this one. Sue the school. Keep that kinky hair uncut. Keep them nappy heads happy!
Look, I understand tradition. I appreciate decorum. I encourage good grooming and fitting in, not to mention deference to religious ceremony. But NONE of that explains why I should have to cut my 'fro or shave my dreads, man. My hair doesn’t have anything to do with my academic performance as a Catholic School student.
The restriction against Caucasian men who grow their hair the length of women’s hair is a stupid one. Similar restrictions applied to African-American males is not only just as stupid but borderline harassment; in THIS day and age, wearing one’s hair in cornrows, locks, dreads and 'fros can say as much about one’s political awareness, socioeconomic stance and religious beliefs as well as being a simple declaration of personal style. Bottom line: it’s a dumbass rule. Misapplied, it can be a racist rule. (Okay, okay. Too strong. How about ‘ethnocentristic rule’? Better?)
I respect the right to determine policy-setting in private institutions, but dammit, if you take my money and let me in, you gotta expect me to question the wisdom of my submitting to dumb, indefensible expectations like cutting my crown and glory. Telling me, “It’s always been done this way,” ain’t enough, doesn’t cut it. It really won’t cut it.
Unfortunately for you, “that’s a stupid idea” does not constitute grounds for a lawsuit, even if it is entirely true. The question is whether they have a legal right to make the rule, and in my opinion it’s clear that they do. I’m rather happy to have gone to public school myself at times like these.
While I may appreciate your fervor, you appear to have your understanding of the relationship reversed. The school offers a service and declares that they will provide it for $X and an agreement to follow the rules they have laid out. You are perfectly free to go find some other provider of education who charges less money or who does not have the silly rules.
You are perfectly free to question the wisdom of any rule they impose. However, your right to question ends at the point where you want to force them to change the rules. It is a religious school. They are quite capable of including courses on religion in their required curriculum. You can attend as a devout member of the Assembly of God or an absolute conviction of Atheistic principles and grind your teeth through every religion class, but you cannot demand that they remove the Catholic Catechism from the curriculum.
Most private schools have some sort of PTO on which the administration relies for additional support. Challenging any rule by working the PTO into a froth to demand the changes is acceptable. (The administration may or may not cave in, but the ability to demand the changes is there.) Going outside to a court of law to change the rules is not acceptable.
If you find the rules oppressive, do not spend your money on an “oppressive” institution.
Askia-can I ask if you have ever been to a private Catholic school?
What if someone’s idea of cultural expression is a swastika drawn on their forehead?
Not that it’s the same thing, however, this is a PRIVATE school. They can and do set dress codes and if you want to go there, you must follow them.
Besides, it’s hair-it WILL grow back. (-says me every time I cut my bangs…)
Hell, I couldn’t go to St. Marys with purple hair, or words shaved into my head. If they have a policy on certain hairstyles, it’s their business. You don’t have to go there.
water2: I would counter that even if (granted) the school has the right to make a particular rule, they may NOT necessarily have the right to enforce it. If the school is unwilling, unable or uneffective in making a change to a dumb policy, take 'em to c-o-u-r-t. The students have apparently found at least one attorney willing to take up their cause, who’s to say how much support more they have? Surely there must be precendent set for courts to support the rights of students to expressions of personal appearance even in a parochial setting.
tomndebb: Your argument about trying to force a change in a school’s core curriculum as if it were the same as a minor rule governing hair length is a red herring. Please observe the basic principles of forensic debate and stick to the issues. 
The school offers a service for a fee, true. Heck, they may even offer it for free; I know lots of guys who attended parochial schools on academic and athletic scholarships. Cost is not the issue here. Compliance to the rule is not the issue here. Only the legitimacy of the rule itself is being questioned. It’s a dumb rule, kept in place by a dumb (mostly Eurocentric) tradition.
Schools are about traditions and change. Methodologies change. Fashions change. Hairstyles change. Student body populations change. While I don’t doubt that many students voluntarily comply with this archaic, nineteenth century mode of appearance, if a sizable number of African-American students attending this school decide to say, “I aine cutting it,” it may be time for to schools to consider revising their fashion codes.
I agree that going to the courts may not be the BEST place to fight this fight, but it isn’t unprecedented. If the students can show how this policy is being applied to include just mostly them, or treading on particular religious beliefs they hold dear about cutting hair (Rastafarianism) – they may be keeping their hair long.
Guinastasia: Yes, I went to Holy Trinity Catholic School in the first and fifth grades, where I was an outstanding student who wore his white shirt, plaid vest and black shoes without complaint. (But then, I was ten.) No, I do not have an axe to grind with the Catholic Church. If someone’s idea of cultural expression is a swastika drawn on their forehead, I imagine at the very least they’d have a lot of explaining to do before someone else put a foot up their ass. But you cannot seriously be equating that with wearing some Afro puffs.
Schools should be willing to offer their best services regardless of level of students’ compliance to their rules – especially if ignoring the rules in question does not harm anyone, jeopardize anyone’s safety, offends anyone’s sensibilities by mocking a painful past (like wearing a swastika, the closest thing we have to a visual taboo), or detracts from the learning environment.
And the world is filled with dumbass rules, Askia. For example, 90% of my days, I sit in my office and only interact with people over the phone. Despite this, I am required to comply with my firm’s dress code every day. It’s a dumbass rule. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt wouldn’t affect my job performance, and likely would improve it. I can’t sue over it, however.
As for your assertion that how African-American males wear their hair can be a message about political awareness, etc., I’ll accept that. However, the same can be just as true about Caucasians. Long hair on a white male indicates at least a certain liberalism, and, to take an extreme (and extremely unlikely) hypothetical, if a young Hasidic lad wanted to attend a Catholic school, he would have to trim his ringlets (is that the right word?). Of course, the result would be that the Hasidim wouldn’t attend the school. They wouldn’t have the right to sue.
BTW, a similar issue was once raised in court. An orthodox Jewish Air Force officer sued for the right to wear his yarmulke while on duty. He lost. If the government can legally forbid the wearing of a garment required by the officer’s religion, I’m quite sure a private religious school can forbid wearing of hair in a style that may say something about your religious/political/social views.
Sua
My comments regarding changing the rules were not part of this “debate.” They were an aside to suggest alternative methods of bringing about the changes for which you have displayed such fascination.
The courts are not simply “not the best” place to bring about these changes; they are the wrong places to bring about these changes. If you wish to avoid seeing red herrings, please avoid looking at your own posts (e.g., Rastafarianism). 
Damn, tomndeb: I was hoping to slip that past you…
I wasn’t trying to equate a swastika with an afro. UNLESS…
said student is HINDU, going there on a scholarship because the schools in his neighborhood are horrible. Or something like that. And the swastika comes from the Hindu, I believe. If he chose to wear a swastika, could the school forbid him, if say, you had a teacher there who had a relative die in the Holocaust, or a teacher who was a Holocaust survivor.
Like I said, they are a private school-if they can ask that white guys wear their hair short, then they can ask the same of a black guy. It’s that simple.
originally posted by Askia K. Hale:
Two problems with this-
1 It makes no sense to speak of having a right to make a rule while having no right to enforce it.An unenforceable rule is no rule at all, just some words that either don’t mean anything, or at most, express a preference.
2 I’m fairly certain there’s no precedent “supporting student’s rights to expressions of personal appearance” in parochial (or any private) schools, because, ultimately, there is no right to attend a private school.
In a previous post, you said
I would expect the parents to question that before they enrolled the child,paid the tuition, and agreed to abide by the rules.
Guianastasia: I think the Nazi swastika is an inverted version of the one you cite. One goes counterclockwise, the other, clockwise. I don’t remember off the top of my head which is which. Regardless, expect the Hindu student to be looked at in confusion for six seconds before developing “foot-in-the-ass” disease.
doreen: I agree it makes no sense to have have rules that aren’t or can’t be enforced. But do you REALIZE how often it happens in schools? I’ve spent a fair number of years in academia and I have seen completely arbitrary decisions made to accommodate students who have out-and-out flagrantly broken rules and gotten away with it, based on who their parents are or their value to the school as outstanding members of the student body. I’m not saying it’s right, only that it sometimes works. Fairness is the whore of clout.
You got me on my second point. I admit to talking out my ass on that one. Damn, that’s like TWICE this morning I’ve been busted.
As for parents carefully questioning policy before forking over money to the schools… well… that’s a little harder to do if your kid grows dreadlocks over the summer and starts back at the beginning of his senior year, y’know? I see this more as an effort by the students to band together to make a change. I personally would try to find a way to work around the rule without going to court, but if there’s a group of students involved in the suit I suspect they’ll have a better case. When you cannot mitigate, litigate. Ask Al Gore.
In the Philadelphia Inquirer acticle of 12/2, there is no mention made of a lawsuit on this issue. ( so it appears that either they have not found an attorney willing to take the case, or they have not decided to look for one) It states that the principal has agreed to review the policy,but that since she wants input from parents and teachers, it will not be changed this year.
In my experience with Catholic schools,that’s probably closer to the real issue.To give an example, my chidren’s school used to require that they wear their gym uniforms under a uniform sweatsuit from Nov- March, and under their regular uniform the rest of the year. We asked the principal if the policy could be changed to allow the swaetsuits all year. It was. The results would have been very different if someone had simply ignored the policy.The issue itself was trivial, but the refusal to abide by the policy (even while trying to change it) wouldn’t have been.
It’s only harder to do if the policy didn’t exist before the senior year,which is unlikely. ( and BTW, this isn’t a high school,if that matters to you- the oldest child involved is in 8th grade and has attended the school since kindergarten) If there was such a policy when your kid was a junior, and he decided to grow dreadlocks over the summer, you as a parent have 3 choices-
1)change schools,
2)make your kid cut his hair
3) don’t do either 1 or 2,send the kid back with dreadlocks, but know that there may come a point where you’ll have to decide which is more important to you- having your child attend this school,or having your child have dreadlocks.
I know a guy named Swastik–from the same root as swastika, obviously. He is Indian-American, and as he explained to me, the swastika is quite a wonderful thing to an Indian. (Too bad about the Nazis co-opting it) Anyhow, going around with a name like Swastik is not an easy thing. I admire him for not changing it.
Back to the dicussion:
The comment about getting busted by the nuns at the mall got me thinking:
My husband, Jeff, is a middle-school teacher (public school in the 'burbs.) One of the rules at the school is that kids on bikes must wear helmets. They even assign a teacher to monitor the bike racks to enforce this. The punishment for not wearing a helmet is detention.
Now, when Jeff sees his kids around town riding bikes without helmets, he obviously does not give them detention, but he frequently stops them and scolds them, or at least yells “where’s your helmet?” as they whiz by. He doesn’t do it because they are breaking a school rule, but because he sees them doing something dangerous.
Do you think that this is inappropriate for him to do?
From what I remember, the Hindu swastika is counterclockwise, while the Nazi one is clockwise. The Hindu one symbolizes mysticism/occultism. But that’s neither here nor there.
On the issue at hand, all I can say is: You don’t like the rules, quit paying them.