Teen Got Sent Home From School Because Her Collarbones Were Showing

In parts of India, it is common practice for parents to pull their daughters out of school before the girls have completed elementary education in order to save costs.

For many of these parents, educating a young woman is not as necessary as educating a young man.

In parts of America, school officials prioritize similarly.

The latest example of these efforts to keep school free of distractions for boys at the expense of their female counterparts takes us to Woodford County High School in Kentucky, where student Stephanie Hughes was sent home during the second day of school for exposing her collar bone.

On Thursday, Hughes' mother, Stacie Dunn, wrote in a Facebook post,

I had to come to the school because according to her school principal what she is wearing is out of dress code and inappropriate for school…WOODFORD County High School and the principle have been enforcing a dress code where as girls can not show even [their collarbones] because it may distract their male class mates.

Hughes was not the only young woman sent home from school that day, and when she attempted to add a scarf to her ensemble to cover her lower neck, the principal was not satisfied.

Posted by Stacie Dunn on Thursday, August 13, 2015

It was at this point when Hughes became agitated and was sentenced to early dismissal.

Woodford came under criticism previously for taking such a hard line with its dress code pertaining to female students. In May, a Woodford student named Maggie Sunseri posted a video to her YouTube titled “Shame: A Documentary on School Dress Code.”

The film features female students, whose choices of attire range widely from woman to woman, being interviewed about their experiences with the dress code.

Of being pulled out of class for a violation, one student in the video claims,

It felt pretty silly to me and I probably, earlier in the year, would have been more upset about it but I mean it really just felt like a waste of my time because we were actually doing an experiment that day in the classroom.

Woodford Principal Rob Akers insisted the dress code was not established because the administration doubted a male student's ability to maintain control.

Akers explained,

One of the things that our teachers didn't really want to do was to be measuring (children's clothes).

Regardless of whether or not the school board's intention was to prioritize male students' education, young women repeatedly being pulled out of class over the dress code impedes educational progress.

Akers told Dunn he was open to revising the dress code with her help and reportedly presented the school's Site-Based Decision-Making committee with the new code earlier this week.

Citations: Kentucky high school students, parents fight strict dress code that requires girls to cover collarbone (NY Daily News)