At a charter school in North Carolina, all students follow the same curriculum. However, their demands for uniforms for the sexes – trousers for boys and skirts, skirts or sweaters for girls – separate them in a way that the federal court ruled unconstitutional on Tuesday. The dress code at Charter Day School in Leland, NC, can no longer be enforced, wrote Senior Circuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan in the majority. The school’s claim that the uniform rules promote chivalry “on the grounds that girls are” fragile vessels “worthy of” gentle “treatment by boys” proved to be discriminatory against students in decisions 10 to 6 of the USA. 4th Circuit Court of Appeal. “By enforcing the requirement for skirts based on blatant gender stereotypes about the ‘appropriate place’ for girls and women in society, [the school] has acted in clear violation of the equal protection clause, “Keenan wrote in the opinion. The decision followed a seven-year effort to end the school skirt requirement for schoolgirls. In 2015, Keely Burks, then a 14-year-old eighth grader at Charter Day School, started an application with her friends to change the single policy. Eventually they collected more than 100 signatures, he wrote in 2016, but the document “was taken from us by a teacher and we never took it back”. Around the same time, the mother of a kindergarten asked about the requirement, which she considered to be biased. The school’s founder, Baker A. Mitchell, responded to her email by explaining that Charter Day School was “determined to maintain knighthood and respect among young women and men” and that there was a need “to restore and then maintain traditional respect for peers “, according to court documents. Berks, a kindergarten teacher and a fourth-grader, later became a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in 2016 by the American Civil Liberties Union. They argued in the suit that wearing skirts prevented them from playing freely, moving actively and feeling as if their comfort was valued as much as that of male students. “I hope that by challenging my school policy, I can help other girls who want to go to school without stereotypes or who just want to play outside or sit in the classroom without feeling uncomfortable,” Berks wrote at the time. A lengthy legal dispute ensued, in which rulings on the case were contested between federal and state courts. examining whether the dress code violated the rights of female students. “No, this is not 1821 or 1921. It is 2021,” Keenan, the judge, wrote last summer. “Women serve in combat units of our armed forces. Women walk in space and contribute their talents to the International Space Station. “Women serve in the Supreme Court of our country, in Congress, and today a woman is the Vice President of the United States.” To determine the constitutionality of the skirt requirement, the judges examined whether the chartered school was a public body. The Charter Day School argued that it was a private entity and that the equal protection clause in the Constitution – which prohibits discrimination – did not apply. But the majority of the federal appellate court eventually disagreed. If the chartered school receives state funding, the judges wrote, it must follow the same laws and civil rights protections as public schools, which are barred from imposing discriminatory dress codes or censoring students’ expressions. Aaron Streett, a lawyer representing Charter Day School, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Post. However, Streett told the Associated Press that the school was evaluating the next steps, adding that the court’s opinion “limits the ability of parents to choose the best education for their children.” For the plaintiffs in the trial, the decision was celebrated – even afterwards some graduated from the K-8 foundation. “I’m glad that the girls at Charter Day School will now be able to learn, move and play on an equal footing with the boys at school,” said Bonnie Peltier, the mother of a former student involved in the case. release. “In 2022, girls should not decide between themselves to wear something that makes them feel uncomfortable or to waste time teaching in the classroom.”
