Addressing the Dress Code

The content of the email and its timing were met with confusion and anger. Students took to social media platforms and criticized the new policy. One complaint was that the abrupt announcement did not give students and their families time to adapt to the new rules. Additionally, many felt that the dress code targeted female-identifying students disproportionately. And finally, many expressed disappointment with the administration for putting in place a policy that many thought was conservative and unjustified.

The next day, on Saturday, August 27, students and parents received a follow-up email clarifying the dress code from Dr. Payne. However, this email, which specified certain restrictions and explained how the policy correlated to the community handbook, did little to mollify the student body.

Over two-hundred students signed a letter of protest, which circulated over that weekend. The letter's purpose was to “express [the students’] deep dismay and frustration with the new dress code policy.” According to the letter, “The current policy advances an inequitable set of regulations and disproportionately places the burden of compliance on female-identifying students.” It also condemned the language used in the rationale for the dress code, asserting that “a person’s ability to ‘concentrate on intellectual growth’ should not be predicated on the clothing that another individual wears.” Lastly, the letter addressed the unfairness of announcing such a major change so close to the start of the school year, highlighting the economic burden that this could pose. It concludes by depicting the policy as “represent[ing] an unnecessary exertion of school authority on students’ bodies,” and having “detrimental consequences for the whole school community.”

The letter was sent to the Masterman administration on the evening of Saturday, August 27. To this date, it has received no response.

As the first day of school approached, students were not sure what to wear. The heat and humidity of a late August day in Philadelphia was not something to be ignored, especially in combination with the astonishingly high temperature within the school building, where many areas do not have air conditioning. As a result, many decided to break the dress code.

Mr. Gilken, the dean of the high school, remarked, “the reaction was expected. This is a serious culture change, any time there is a policy that relates to bits and pieces of a person’s identity, there are going to be concerns regarding equity, with regard to race, gender, and when it comes to a dress code, body type and all those things.”

Students were pleasantly surprised on the first day of school when no one was dress-coded. This “salutary neglect” period continued for weeks. At the same time, the Student Government Association (SGA) attempted to communicate with the administration to voice the student body's ongoing concerns about the dress code and its rationale.

Maya Salzman (12-1), the president of SGA, felt responsible to speak on behalf of the students. “My job is almost pointless if I don't have some upper hand in communication with administration,” she says. “That is what I've worked all four years for.” Despite this, Salzman and SGA had a difficult time scheduling a meeting with the administration. When the highly anticipated meeting finally occurred, in late September, both SGA and the administration came prepared to voice their thoughts on the issue. “I disagree with [the dress code] and I went in [to the meeting] ready to put my foot down and tell [administration] why I disagreed with it, why the student body disagreed with it, and still disagrees with it,” says Salzman.

In the wake of the meeting, substantial changes were made in order to retract certain aspects of the new dress code policy, including a change to the tank top policy and another amendment reducing the inseam requirement for shorts.

This meeting also highlighted that the student body and administration fundamentally disagree about the entire concept of a dress code. “[The administration] thinks that you should be able to go to school… and then walk right out to an interview,” says Salzman. However, in Salzman’s view, the dress code does not achieve this, and, in any case, does not seem like a worthwhile goal for high school students. Another result of the meeting was the establishment of a new system to report dress code infractions. Previously, teachers could simply dress-code students in front of the class or privately. Now, in the new policy, a teacher cannot directly confront a student. Instead, they must file a report with the administration, and the student will be alerted without being told who dress-coded them.

SGA is continuing to meet with the administration once a month, in order to give the student body a voice and attempt to continue to amend the dress code. “We need to stop telling people what they need to do with their bodies for multiple reasons – for emotional reasons, for economic disparity reasons, for so many different reasons,” says Salzman.

The dress code initially created anger, confusion, and chaos, but it eventually showed that the student body can effectively unite under a common cause. The students were able to make progress when they worked together, organized, and communicated with one another and the administration. Masterman’s diverse and engaged student body proved that it is not afraid to use its voice.