Male student given in-school suspension for wearing nail polish (Texas)

[dead0man]

NBC

An openly gay Texas teenager called out his high school after he was given in-school suspension for wearing nail polish.

Trevor Wilkinson, 17, said he originally received the suspension on Monday after he returned from Thanksgiving break with his nails painted, which violates his school's dress code.

"Imagine your school not allowing boys to paint their nails and giving boys iss [in-school suspension] for it," he said in a tweet on Monday. "And the whole administration being okay with it, homophobic and sexist? welcome to west texas."

<snip>

"It's really sad to me because I feel like it's 2020 and we should be progressing and not taking steps back," he said in a phone interview Saturday. "And it makes me really sad because I know that there are other people who feel like this and feel like they can't express themselves and that they never will be able to because of people like this, who are not open-minded enough to see another perspective."

The teen said he met with the school's principal and vice principal and he was told that if he did not remove his nail polish, he would remain in suspension.

[NewYorkExpress]

It's Texas. We shouldn't be shocked when homophobes do things like this.

[DaleCooper]

Legally, I don't believe that a public school district can place requirements on the appearances of students based on gender.

[dead0man]

Yes indeed, high schools have dress codes and when you violate those dress codes and refuse to correct your appearance you will be suspended lol. When I was in High School I could’ve been sent home for having a stubble let alone having makeup, nail Polish or earrings/piercings. These rules typically extend to females/female schools as well. This is nothing more than a twitter faux outrage story.

did you not read the article?

The student handbook says that men are prohibited from wearing makeup and nail polish. If a campus administrator determines that a student is in violation of the dress code the "student will be given an opportunity to correct the problem at school," it says.

can't do that sh**t in 2020

[dead0man]

I've never heard of a high school banning females from wearing makeup or nail polish (mine certainly didn't, but that was a thousand years ago when teenagers were more free).


edit-a light Googling gave me a few bans of fake or long nails, but nothing about all painted nails

[7,052,770]

Yes indeed, high schools have dress codes and when you violate those dress codes and refuse to correct your appearance you will be suspended lol. When I was in High School I could’ve been sent home for having a stubble let alone having makeup, nail Polish or earrings/piercings. These rules typically extend to females/female schools as well. This is nothing more than a twitter faux outrage story.

did you not read the article?

The student handbook says that men are prohibited from wearing makeup and nail polish. If a campus administrator determines that a student is in violation of the dress code the "student will be given an opportunity to correct the problem at school," it says.

can't do that sh**t in 2020

I did read the article. That line doesn’t have to imply that women are allowed to wear makeup, especially considering it’s NBC paraphrasing the student handbook. The handbook wouldn’t load for me so I was unable to verify wether the same standards are applied to females, but it is typical that additives such as makeup and nail Polish are banned for both males and females at high schools in the western world (and globally).

Um no? I would be shocked if there's a single public high school in America that prohibits females from wearing makeup. At best it would be extremely atypical.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

This might not be a problem in Australia (I hope it's not), but lots of school dress codes in the US are overtly sexist and do mandate gender conformity as well as modesty. It's not universal, but it's common enough to be an issue that younger feminists spend a certain amount of time trying to redress.

[Farmlands]

Yeah, I'm sure that any girl there would be suspended for wearing nail polish. Just like sodomy laws were equally enforced when it came to heterosexual and same-sex relationships. Come on now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I went to high school 18 years ago in a pretty conservative area, (although I guess not rural Texas level conservative) and I can not comprehend anyone wearing nail polish being suspension worthy. This type of sh!t blows my mind.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I went to high school 18 years ago in a pretty conservative area, (although I guess not rural Texas level conservative) and I can not comprehend anyone wearing nail polish being suspension worthy. This type of sh!t blows my mind.

Really?? I was thinking just the opposite that I can't believe that this is a national story for such a routine school discipline. If public schools can't enforce this stuff any longer, we need to fund the alternatives and fast.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I went to high school 18 years ago in a pretty conservative area, (although I guess not rural Texas level conservative) and I can not comprehend anyone wearing nail polish being suspension worthy. This type of sh!t blows my mind.

Really?? I was thinking just the opposite that I can't believe that this is a national story for such a routine school discipline. If public schools can't enforce this stuff any longer, we need to fund the alternatives and fast.

It's not routine or even allowed now. Neil Gorsuch basically said that if something is allowed for one gender it has to be allowed for another. So unless this school bans nail polish for girls too they're being illegal.

[Former President tack50]

This might not be a problem in Australia (I hope it's not), but lots of school dress codes in the US are overtly sexist and do mandate gender conformity as well as modesty. It's not universal, but it's common enough to be an issue that younger feminists spend a certain amount of time trying to redress.

Legally, I don't believe that a public school district can place requirements on the appearances of students based on gender.

It's not routine or even allowed now. Neil Gorsuch basically said that if something is allowed for one gender it has to be allowed for another. So unless this school bans nail polish for girls too they're being illegal.

Tbh if I was the school director (or more accurately, on the school board) my response to this kind of argument, and to this student complaining would be to ban nail polish and makeup for female students too. Instead of the students getting "makeup for all" like they think they'll get; instead they get "makeup for none" for complaining.

There are some dressing codes and they should be complied with. These you can argue that are sexist, but society has decided that makeup and nail polish for men is not ok. An student's odd appeareance can be distracting in class, that is why many times things like going to class on flip flops or swim suits is banned for example.

There was a similar debate raging here recently interestingly; and for a very similar reason (a student wanted to wear a skirt in class). The only difference really would have been that in the case of the school in Spain the student was not openly gay (or at least his sexuality was not commented on by the media); but rather he did it based of some feminist demand.

And my response to that when it got debated was that the school should introduce a school uniform

[T'Chenka]

If it's a private school with mandated uniforms, it should be either nail polish allowed for all or not allowed for all, regardless of gender. Otherwise, this is stupid and the school can f___ off.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There are some dressing codes and they should be complied with. These you can argue that are sexist, but society has decided that makeup and nail polish for men is not ok.

That's a weirdly conformist and complacent view for someone who's usually a somewhat more trenchant critic of society as it is. jao.

[Green Line]

Common sense.

[Amanda Huggenkiss]

Common sense.

Among boomers.

[T'Chenka]

There are some dressing codes and they should be complied with. These you can argue that are sexist, but society has decided that makeup and nail polish for men is not ok. An student's odd appeareance can be distracting in class, that is why many times things like going to class on flip flops or swim suits is banned for example.

There was a similar debate raging here recently interestingly; and for a very similar reason (a student wanted to wear a skirt in class). The only difference really would have been that in the case of the school in Spain the student was not openly gay (or at least his sexuality was not commented on by the media); but rather he did it based of some feminist demand.

All school dress codes shouldn't mention gender (with a possible exception to bras and females, MAYBE, but we don't need to have that conversation right now). Swimsuits, flip-flops and nail polish should be allowed / banned for all students and not with different rules for different genders.

You said "society decided that makeup and nail polish for men is not ok", but that's not really true in western Europe and North America anymore. We have loud and proud LGBTQ students and trans students in our schools, and we have accepted that, so your argument seems a little bizarre to me. Texas isn't Poland or Bulgaria.

[Santander]

I went to high school 18 years ago in a pretty conservative area, (although I guess not rural Texas level conservative) and I can not comprehend anyone wearing nail polish being suspension worthy. This type of sh!t blows my mind.

Really?? I was thinking just the opposite that I can't believe that this is a national story for such a routine school discipline. If public schools can't enforce this stuff any longer, we need to fund the alternatives and fast.

It's not routine or even allowed now. Neil Gorsuch basically said that if something is allowed for one gender it has to be allowed for another. So unless this school bans nail polish for girls too they're being illegal.

That's regarding discrimination, not gendered dress codes, which courts have consistently held as generally non-discriminatory. If the student identified as trans, or if the school required female students to wear makeup and nail polish, there could be a case for discrimination, but this case, petty as it may be, is not discrimination.

[Former President tack50]

There are some dressing codes and they should be complied with. These you can argue that are sexist, but society has decided that makeup and nail polish for men is not ok.

That's a weirdly conformist and complacent view for someone who's usually a somewhat more trenchant critic of society as it is. jao.

I mean, I wish society was more open and progressive on that aspect (even if I have never worn makeup or nail polish; nor do I plan on wearing it any time soon) but unfortunately it isn't. I also think makeup generally looks weird and bad on men but beauty is usually subjective so whatever, more power to the people that do like men with makeup or wearing it (painted nails can look ok but depends on specifics and I'd still not do it).

That is why if the school was (eventually) forced to legislate in the equality direction; I could see them going for "malicious compliance" and following the letter but not the spirit of the law; and banning makeup for women too. (plus you would imagine that even if that was the law, it would never get equally enforced).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There was nothing gendered in my school's dress code, and it was actually quite lax aside from the obvious. In fact the only controversy I can remember at all is when a student had a shirt with a name of some beer brand on it and the teacher made him go to the bathroom and turn it inside out. And that was it, no suspension or even detention or whatever.

[dead0man]

we had a few teachers take issue with "Sex Wax"  (a surfboard wax brand) shirts when I was in school, but the students won and they were allowed to wear them.  They did not let kids wear colored bandanas though.

[TDAS04]

Disgusting.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

To the school administrators and people who support sexist dress policies like this one:

[SingingAnalyst]

I'm assuming this is a public school? I teach at a nonpublic school, and we have a dress code for boys and one for girls. Technically, the school has the authority to suspend the student, but if I were the student or his parents, I would work to change the policy, perhaps by raising awareness as they are doing.

[Kingpoleon]

Unless the school has a compelling interest in preventing such actions, they should not be issuing sex-based rules unless there are specific differences(such as for bras for women and MAYBE tight shorts on men).