See the Sundress That Caused Straight-A Teen to Be Stripped of Her National Honor Society Title | The Blaze
After working hard to make straight As and the honor roll, a 17-year-old junior at Fort Meyers High School was reportedly stripped of her National Honor Society title because she wore a sundress that revealed her shoulders during an election victory speech.
*Smh* More draconian enforcement of the "letter of the law" than any kindness or care about the spirit of it. A memory popped into my mind when I saw her dress; it's of me watching
The Today Show playing in the kitchen while having breakfast back when I was in elementary school, and how there was this collective tsk tsk tsking and other manufactured disapproval of young women from a champion college softball team meeting then-President George W. Bush at the White House on a warm day, for wearing pretty sundresses and summer shoes. It was then characterized as irreverence and "showing up to meet the Commander of the Free World in flip flops." I was thinking - my gosh, people seriously have too much time on their hands and a hobby for criticism. The young women, their coach, and their moms were on the show explaining and defending the attire, and how it was chosen with care and not in any way meant to be disrespectful or inappropriate.
I was elected to give a speech at my graduation in a few weeks, and if that honor was stripped from me because of bare shoulders I think I'd freaking explode. Snatching away something you've spent four years of your life working hard for because of a sundress is just so hugely disproportionate to the offense, and it sends a terrible message. I do think that students should be made aware of the dress code and expected to be in compliance, but I also think the intent of compliance is a crucial factor. Showing up wearing a bikini or an offensive tee shirt would be a clear and deliberate violation. Showing up in a sundress with spaghetti straps - when it's clear just from the girl standing beside her that sundresses themselves are appropriate is a breach due to a minor technicality, not defiance.
Shoulders are a common sight in southwest Florida,” Boland
told the New York Daily News. “She put it best by saying, ‘
What everyone is showing me here is my shoulders are more valued than my brain.’”
She's right.
ETA: I just spotted this in Seventeen, and it has additional relevant information. The ceremony wasn't held at her own school, but another one, and as a special event outside of school hours. When made aware that she was violating the dress code she offered to put on the jacket she had brought with her, apologize, and redeliver the speech to be able to retain the title, but the advisors at the event said no. This was not in accordance to the districts policy for handling dress code infractions, which states that students are to be issued a verbal warning first, and shouldn't lose their eligibility to participate in extracurriculars until the second or third offense. Since she was never warned about her attire and was allowed to give her speech and be awarded the position, she and her mom rightfully agree that it shouldn't have been stripped after the fact. She had the ability to correct the problem if she'd been made aware of it prior to giving the speech since she had a jacket with her.
It also says that other students complained to advisors about her dress, and that's what led to the title being stripped. That reeks of spiteful pettiness to me. I mean, c'mon. Adults saw her with their own eyes, too. If they felt like she was in violation of the policy they should have either approached her before the speech and asked her to put the jacket on, or simply issued the warning afterwards. Ugh. Flashbacks. This reminds me of when we won a national dance title, and then a competing studio complained that our prop was an inch higher than the rules permitted. The thing is, they'd seen us performing with it in dress rehearsal and didn't raise a peep. They waited until the judges scored us and were going to induct us into the Hall of Fame to make a complaint. It only served them to make a fuss if they were second and could then claim our victory. If they genuinely were complaining because they thought it was a safety violation like they later claimed to same face, it sorta seems they wouldn't have said something
before we performed.