Coast 5th grader suspended for wearing hoodie and leggings. Did she violate dress code?

Until last Friday, 11-year-old Shiloh Fore had never gotten in trouble at school.

So the last thing her father expected when he asked how her day went after picking her up was to learn that the elementary school student had spent the entire day under in-school suspension, or ISS.

Still more surprising to her father, Biloxi police lieutenant Clint Fore, was the reason for her detention.

Shiloh, a 5th grader at West Wortham Elementary & Middle, had supposedly violated the school dress code by wearing leggings and a hoodie so oversized it hung “almost down to her freaking knees,” her father said.

Shiloh told the Sun Herald she was among a number of students — all female — who were stopped by the principal, Michael Weaver, as they walked into the school building and sent directly into ISS for the day due to dress code infractions.

Shiloh estimates 17 or 18 students were in ISS on Friday morning. Not all of the students were there for dress code infractions, she said. The school has not commented on this figure.

Shiloh said she was embarrassed and upset and described her experience in ISS as “scary.”

“It made me have a lot of anxiety,” Shiloh said. “My hand wouldn’t stop shaking. And I did not know what to do.”

Did student violate the dress code?

After a discussion with Shiloh’s mother, Clint Fore wrote an email to Weaver expressing his anger at his daughter’s unfair treatment, attaching photos of Shiloh in the offending outfit which he thought showed she didn’t violate the dress code.

Fore took particular exception to the fact that all of the students punished were girls.

“Here we are in 2022 and girls have to worry about wearing outfits that aren’t even inappropriate,” Fore wrote.

“Young kids, especially girls at or around my daughter’s age are going through a bunch of changes. The last thing they need is somebody embarrassing them in the hallway for wearing something that is perfectly appropriate,” he added.

Shiloh’s mother, Ashton Fore, posted a photo of her daughter dressed in the sweatshirt and leggings to Facebook with the caption, “West Wortham seems to think this is inappropriate enough to put my daughter in ISS for the day for a dress code violation without notifying her parents.”

The post received 75 comments, many from outraged parents.

Shiloh was wearing a hoodie recently gifted her by a West Wortham 6th grade teacher, a best friend of Ashton Fore.

Shiloh’s mother describes the sweatshirt as “two sizes too big, almost.”

The Harrison County elementary school dress code stipulates that leggings may only be worn with tops “longer than finger tip in length.” To test whether Shiloh’s sweatshirt was up to code, Weaver asked her to hold her hands by her side.

While photos taken by her parents show that Shiloh’s sweatshirt did extend beyond her fingertips, she says her backpack caused it to ride up slightly higher than the approved length.

Shiloh says Weaver then made a request which her father found especially disturbing.

After the fingertip test, Shiloh said, “he told me to pull up my hoodie so that he could see my shirt” in order to ascertain whether the shirt was sufficiently long.

In an email response to Clint Fore reviewed by the Sun Herald, Weaver denied asking Shiloh to raise her hoodie. Weaver declined to comment, saying he did not have permission from the school district.

Fore also objected to his daughter missing a full day of in-person instruction.

“Your child was given the opportunity to work on our online learning platform and did not waist her day sitting in ISS [sic],” the principal wrote in his email to Shiloh’s father.

In the email, the principal apologized for not notifying Shiloh’s parents of her suspension but did not explain why the Fores weren’t notified, which is mandated in the Harrison County school district’s dress code policy.

“If an administrator deems the student attire inappropriate, parent(s) will be required to bring a change of clothing in order for a student to remain in school for the day,” the policy says.

Clint Fore told the Sun Herald he would have been happy to bring Shiloh a change of clothing had the school informed him of the issue.

Harrison County superintendent Mitchell King did not respond to Sun Herald’s requests for comment.

Dress code violations a nationwide issue

In recent years, school dress codes have become a growing source of controversy across the United States.

Education policy experts have criticized such policies as sexist, noting that girls bear the brunt of their enforcement. The policies can also enable discrimination against Black and LGBTQ+ students through restrictions on hairstyles and gender expression.

Amy Bryant, an Atlanta-based psychotherapist who counsels children and families, told the Sun Herald that many of her clients struggle with restrictive and opaque school dress codes.

“I can’t even tell you the number of girls I’ve talked to who’ve said, ‘I don’t even know what to wear in the morning. I measure it and then I worry,’” Bryant said.

In October, Bryant co-authored a column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution arguing dress codes are detrimental to students’ mental health.

“When we tell girls that they can’t show their midriffs or their shoulders, we’re teaching them that their bodies are shameful, that they’re responsible for whether or not people are looking at their bodies,” Bryant told the Sun Herald.

Suzanne Eckes, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in education law, said in an interview that gender-specific enforcement of dress codes could violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

“Under an equal protection analysis, students who are similarly situated need to be treated the same. So there’s no reason that a girl should be treated differently in this situation than a boy,” Eckes told the Sun Herald.

To evaluate whether Weaver’s actions are legally discriminatory, Eckes said one would need to ask, “Is he out there looking at the fingertips of boys who are wearing hoodies? Why’s it girls?”

In his email to Clint Fore, Weaver wrote, “I can assure you that if a male would have walked in front of me out of dress code, he would have met with the same consequences.”

Reaching out to school board

Harrison County school board member Rena Wiggins echoed this defense, writing in a text message to the Sun Herald that the fact that all of the students in ISS on Friday were girls “does not particularly concern me as the weather has [been] pretty cold lately and the trend in fashion currently for girls is leggings.”

After his exchange with Weaver, Fore forwarded his complaint to the members of the Harrison County school board and the district superintendent, asking for an investigation. He has yet to receive an answer from any of them.

On Monday, Shiloh said, Weaver was checking students’ outfits again as she walked into the school.

“I had to walk past super fast. I didn’t want them to see me,” she said.

This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 1:11 PM.